


The Reluctant Alchemist's Guide to Thedas (Vol. 1)

by Paradigm_F



Series: Recipes for Disaster [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alchemy, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Avvar Culture and Customs, Crossover Cosmology, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Dark Timeline Thedas, Dubious Botany, F/M, Female Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Humanities MCIT, Humor, Hungarian Mythology, Inquisitor (Dragon Age) is not the Protagonist, Major Original Character(s), Minor Cassandra Pentaghast/Varric Tethras, Minor Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Modern Character in Thedas, Multi, Mythic Fiction, POV Third Person, Philosophy, Politics, Slavic mythology, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smut, Social Commentary, Trope Subversion/Inversion, Weird Inquisitor, Weird Plot Shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2019-09-05 06:31:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 34
Words: 156,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16805317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradigm_F/pseuds/Paradigm_F
Summary: ***Remastered Version ofThe Reluctant Alchemist's Guide to Thedas, Part 1"***A modern-day historian tries to survive Thedas by wit, chance, and the skin of her teeth at the questionable edges of the Inquisition.Margo Duvalle likes her quiet academic life just fine. Her research on the history of botany is going well - until she finds an odd manuscript in the local special collections library. What starts as a promising source for a new article leads to a series of unfortunate events that hurl Margo into an unfamiliar world - and into a stranger's body. But a PhD in history doesn't prepare you for surviving in a world on the edge of collapse, especially when the organization that seeks to fix things is itself a sordid mess. As she tries to unravel the mysteries lurking behind young Evelyn Trevelyan's apparent incompetence, Margo is led into a tangled web that weaves multiple worlds together — and what waits in the shadows might be much bigger than whatever strife plagues Thedas.





	1. D is for Deathroot

**Author's Note:**

> A rewrite/edited version of Part 1 of The Reluctant Alchemist's Guide to Thedas, which got orphaned in error. Part 2 of the series is ongoing, with semi-regular updates. 
> 
> A few notes about what RAGtT is and isn't in the interest of managing expectations and help you decide whether to give it a whirl:
> 
> * The tone is humor, but the world-building is dark. I take some of the worst choices that could have happened in the previous two games (and some that couldn't have happened in-game at all) and combine them into a particularly crapsack version of Thedas.
> * The main character is not the Inquisitor, and is not "oracular. " She has no prior familiarity with the games or the game world. (Of course, that doesn't mean that she won't impact events). 
> * This is not a "The MCIT Will Fix-It." This is probably the most important point going forward. I mean this in the sense that it is explicitly not a Modern Girl Saves Thedas wish-fulfillment power fantasy, and I very deliberately write (or try to write) against the grain of that trope. If you're mostly accustomed to saving-the-world superhero narratives, this story won't fulfill those expectations. This is really meant for a mature audience: the world is messy and complex, power(s) come at a cost, characters are small cogs in a great indifferent machinery, the night is dark and full of terrors etc etc 
> * This is a canon-compliant(ish) AU and is skewed towards original fiction. RAGT improvises on the game's timeline until the end of Act I, then deviates quite drastically after that. This is not a retelling of the canonical story we all know and love. With that in mind, I treat the universe of this fic as its own standalone world, in that it tries to build an overarching explanation for what an MCIT would be doing in Thedas in the first place. This also means that while characters have their in-game motivations and plans and try to be very mindful of their original voicing and characterization, they are also reacting to a completely different set of parameters, so the overarching plot shifts accordingly.
> * If you would like a change from a predominantly Western European fantasy world-building, this draws a lot on Central European and Slavic folklore and quite a bit on Central Asian religions and mythology (for reasons pertinent to the plot).
> * English is not my first language. I am certainly linguistically competent in it, but if some turns of phrase have a bit of an odd flavor, this is probably a side-effect of that (of course, the OC's first language is also not English, so we could write it off to her voicing/characterization). Please feel free to leave me a comment if you catch something too egregious.
> 
> A quick additional note about the world-building and characterization. The plot of this story is NOT Solas/Fen'Harel centric in the sense that there are more than one big player and more than one big issue, and the problems and challenges of the RAGT-verse have their own internal logic. 
> 
> Thank you for your reading eyes. I welcome both comments and concrit, and appreciate the labor you put into composing them.
> 
> Content warnings are applied to specific chapters.  
> NSFW chapters are marked with *  
> Graphically violent chapters are marked with ^
> 
> All characters except OCs belong to Bioware.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: this chapter references attempted sexual assault

"Aconitum... Aconitum."

Margo stared at the yellowed parchment page with dull-minded ferocity. The staring lent no discernible result, safe for the bleary vision and thunderous headache gathering steam somewhere at the back of her skull.

"That's not an aconite, it's a delphinium, you mindless git."

For the most part, Margo loved ancient botanical treatises. The delicate scroll, the dry smell of parchment, the beautiful, minutely detailed hand-drawn illustrations. This one though, was an exception. As far as botanical treatises went, it sucked. And trying to translate said treatise at 10pm at night, after she had taught two lectures and one review session and was wrung out, sucked especially thoroughly. She could barely make out the plant names, likely transcribed by someone with only a marginal grasp of the subject matter, and even less aptitude.

The manuscript was anonymous, of course. As far as Margo could tell, it was likely a copy of a copy, commissioned by some provincial abbot to supplement some boondock monastery's piddling curriculum, and, judging by the abundant mistakes and heinous drawings, executed by a perennially drunken monk.

Margo decided to call him Brother Rufus.

That hadn't stopped the rare collections librarian from treating the manuscript like it was Paracelsus's lost formula for the elixir of eternal life.

"This is a very precious text," the pearl-wearing paragon of propriety had imparted on Margo, her platinum bob staying eerily immobile despite the unmistakable head shake of preemptive disapproval. Margo had nodded sagely.

Sure it was.

She should have felt grateful that it was even available. It wasn't like her new article on medieval materia medica trade routes was going to write itself without original sources. But there were original sources, and then there was Brother Rufus's magnum opus of mediocre drawings and bullshit plant names. The poor sod couldn't even identify an aconite properly.

Margo turned the page. Stared.

And then stared some more.

Brother Rufus wasn't just drinking, she decided. He must have been digging into the Datura supplies.

The drawing was poorly traced, and the ink had leeched into the paper over the years, but the picture looked more like some kind of sea creature plopped out of the water and left to putrefy – a mass of dark tentacles with some vaguely hostile looking red dots speckling the entire arrangement. Might have been berries, might have been eyes, for all Margo could tell. Either that, or Brother Rufus had spat out some wine on the page. Probably nose spat it, Margo decided, considering the slightly bumpy nature of the splatter. Centuries old wine mixed in with some dead monk's mucus.

What could be better?

There was a scribble next to the drawing which looked vaguely like a plant name annotation, but only if you sort of crossed your eyes and squinted at it sideways. Darth Rot? That didn't sound right. She snapped a picture of the text on her cellphone and ran it through the sharpen algorithm of her photo software. It didn't lend a stark improvement, but…

"Ok, Brother Rufus, what the hell is a Death Root?"

She turned to the next page. The drawing featured therein didn't exactly ameliorate on the previous entry. It had a cyan-colored tip and a fleshy base and looked like… Well.

"Alright. What shall we call you? I vote for Orc's Rod."

There was the distinct sound of someone clearing their throat. Margo looked up. To say the librarian's expression was disapproving would be like saying that leprosy was a chronic skin condition.

Margo schooled her face into something she hoped was appropriately chastised. The inscription next to the "plant," if one could call it that, was surprisingly legible at least. Really, though? "Deep mushroom?" As opposed to what, shallow mushroom? She sighed. Why don't we just cut to the chase, and call it "Some Fungus."

The next page didn't have any botanical drawings, but a kind of addendum, or perhaps commentary, by the otherwise anonymous Brother Rufus.

"Taken from the Compendium of Ines Arancia, Foul Beldams and Loose Mistress who is't shouldst has't been burn'd at the Stake f'r h'r naughty Ways and unholy Cons'rtion with the Flibbertigibbet, and did punish duly as wast pleasing and prop'r."

Margo frowned.

"Fuck you too, Brother Rufus."

"Ms. Duvalle! Please watch your language in the library."

Margo looked up again. "My apologies."

It probably wasn't a good time to remind the librarian that it was Dr. Duvalle, but it still chafed.

She got up, taking the tome with her.

"Ms. Kostinsky, do you happen to have anything on this Ines Arancia this manuscript mentions?"

The librarian looked at her with thinly veiled disdain and pointed her chin at the computer – itself a medieval artifact – and its supposed electronic catalogue.

"Have you tried to run a search?"

"I haven't, but…"

"We are closing in ten minutes. Would you like to return that?"

It wasn't really a question. Margo relinquished the tome, and went back to her desk to gather her stuff. There was a strange tingling sensation in her fingertips – not an itch, exactly, but a kind of dull throb, like the precursor of a burn.

She walked out of the library into the frigid night air. The snowflakes were twirling in the light of the single street lamp.

Her car was parked a good fifteen minutes away from the university library, and she bundled her coat against the chill, steeling herself for the walk. She wished they'd change the street lamps. The new lights were on the duller side, apparently for the sake of energy efficiency. At least, this part of town was mostly quiet, and heavily policed by the university cops.

The burn in her fingers was getting more uncomfortable. She wondered if it was an allergic reaction – perhaps to a compound that had sealed the manuscript's ink or had been used to treat the paper? She should have used her gloves.

She'd wash her hands when she got home. And then cuddle in bed with Mindy, the feline terror. Although the little furry traitor was probably sleeping on Jake's fold-out couch, while he was weathering another explosive breakup in her tiny apartment. Her brother has always been better with cats than with women.

She'd settle for a glass of Merlot and Netflix instead.

Her mind returned to Ines Arancia. She wondered who she had been – and how the inept monk had gotten his hands on this Ines's Compendium, from where he had copied the strange plant entries. If only she could track down the original, this could actually be quite interesting.

She was absorbed in her thoughts, which meant that she wasn't paying attention when the man in the leather jacket turned into her street and fell in step behind her. Even when the footsteps quickened, their staccato rhythm bouncing off the brick wall of the warehouse along which she was walking, it took her too long to register the danger, as if through a fog.

And then the wind was knocked out of her. She fell to the ground, hands thrown out defensively to try to stave off the impact with the pavement. The shock resonated through her bones, making her teeth clatter in her head. Before she could recover, someone grabbed her hair, and yanked her forward, then back up unto her feet. She tried to scream, but got a mouthful of leather glove. It tasted like stale cigarettes and gunmetal.

She tried to kick out with her foot, but it didn't connect. She was launched into the brick wall, and then the bastard body slammed into her, a hand fumbling at her jeans, the cold sharp press of a knife at her throat.

"Don't move, little bitch," he breathed into her ear, the air around him rancid with unprocessed alcohol and the acrid, metallic tang of cheap cologne.

She didn't waste her breath trying to argue, but kicked out again, and this time there was a satisfying meaty thump, and she ducked out and to the left, out of the knife's way.

She ran. She could hear her attacker lunging after her, but she fixed her eyes on the blue light of an emergency phone, all the way up the street, so she sped up, lungs burning with gulps of icy air.

She almost made it. He caught up to her some fifteen feet away from the blue beacon. When she realized she wouldn't outrun him, she turned around. Later, much later, when all of this is over, she will struggle to remember his face, and can't.

She dodged the first blow, and yelled "Help!" at the top of her lungs. And then, belatedly, "Fire!" Because crowd psychology was predictable when it came to women being attacked in the street.

The second blow landed on her stomach, connecting. She doubled over, with the sudden clarity that she was probably going to die, and that her hands for some reason were glowing green. They felt very hot, itchy, and like they should be put to some kind of use, though she couldn't quite fathom what – a weird thing to worry about under the circumstances. For an irrational second she thought of Ines Arancia, "Foul Beldams," and wondered if she did end up getting burned at the stake, as per Brother Rufus's suggestion, but then a pair of hands closed around her throat, and she couldn't breathe.

She tried to kick her assailant in the nutsack – because if ever someone had it coming - but he was expecting it, and her kick landed on his thigh instead. Dark spots bloomed, ate away at her vision. Her hands were on fire by then, though the fire felt cold and almost astringent, and Margo had the sudden, unwelcome insight that the pages were probably coated in some sort of plant toxin. Her mind, fuzzy and distant by that point, hurled towards the bottom of the cone of darkness, and at its center a greenish glow beckoned. A voice whispered something important. Well, not a voice, exactly, more like a sense of intent.

It told her that it could help.

It told her to stop struggling, and to just let it through.

It told her that it too had struggled.

It told her that it could give her justice.

Distantly, as if in another world, in another lifetime, her back hit the pavement. She felt the sudden cold bite of winter air on her bare thighs.

And so, with what remained of her awareness, she forced herself to move over, and to let the whispering thing come through.

A sensation of being turned inside out, and then falling down the tunnel while something else – something distinctly alien and so profoundly wrathful she had no words for it - rushed by, and before she reached the bottom of her free fall, she saw her body shoving its hands wrist-deep into her attacker's chest.

Her clawed hands.

Except not her hands anymore, because she was airborne, and then torn through some kind of cosmic membrane with a sound of ripping fabric. A sense of something vast and incomprehensible and distinctly non-Euclidean warped her mind to the breaking point and then past it, and then she plummeted into a darkness tinged with that same acidic green light.

***

When Margo comes to, there is a room, the smell of wood smoke, and a pungent, but not altogether unpleasant aroma – like inula and camphor, with an underlying spice she can't identify. Something like nutmeg, but more bitter. The smell is reassuring, somewhere half-way between medicine and incense.

When she tries to move, her body feels strange – like it's not quite sure it fits her. And then, the vertigo passes, and everything snaps into place. She sits up.

She is covered with a rough woolen blanket that smells of sheep. And underneath, she is naked. And this is definitely not her body.

"What the actual fuck?" she manages, and then a movement catches her eye.

"Good. You are awake" a man utters, the voice amused, but mild. "That is one less casualty than we have thought."

She pulls the blanket more securely around herself, and looks him over. He's slender, long, bald, and has pointy ears. And he is most definitely not human. Humanoid, yes. But this is not, as far as she can tell, the same sub-species. Like, say, mugwort to wormwood. Both species of Artemesia, two quite different plants.

"Is this a dream? A hallucination?" She swallows. While she's on a roll with the rhetorical questions, she might as well get the big one on the table. "Am I dead?"

"You most certainly were dead, so I must admit I am pleasantly surprised at your unexpected recovery."

She swallows. Her throat feels parched, and there is an ache in her side.

"What killed me?"

"A demon, I would guess."

"A what, now?"

"A demon." The amusement fades from his eyes. "We lost too many soldiers in the battle. We brought our wounded back, but many more I fear will not recover. Our medicine supplies are short, and there are too few mages in Haven to help the healing."

There is a strange sing-song quality to his voice that lulls her into accepting the statement as is. Before, of course, its meaning actually reaches her brain.

"Battle? Um… did you say mages?"

He simply nods, and then stands up.

"Rest. You were badly damaged, and it will take time for you to recover your faculties. I have more patients to see before the day's end."

"I…" She thinks. This doesn't feel like a dream, but even if it is, mindlessly gaping won't get her anywhere. She should be in a state of shock, but she is not. Her body - which isn't hers - is tired, but sedate.

"I think I have memory loss. I am not quite sure…what or who I am."

Which isn't a lie. The man stops, and walks back to the bed, crouching next to it. He brings his face close to hers, and at this distance, the slight difference of his physique feels less pronounced. Margo forces herself to remain still, to stand her ground. She tries to consider his features analytically, as if he were a painting, or a statue from a bygone era. She tries to decide whether he is handsome, but the differences snag at her perception too much for that.

"I can tell you that you are a warrior. Based on your weaponry, you are trained in stealth, and wield daggers. I thought I saw you kill a rage demon, but not before it struck you. Though its remains were nowhere to be found when I got to you. You were dying. I did what I could to repair the damage, but I had not thought it would be sufficient. And others needed my help." His grey eyes seem to cloud over, like he's stepping away and deeper inside of himself. "All decisions are sacrifices, are they not?"

Margo thinks back to her body dying in the alley, at the hands of some anonymous asshole. About the call for her to "let it through." About her hands, no longer her own, ripping into a chest. "I suppose. Is that all you can tell me?"

"Besides this, I can only tell you the obvious. You are skilled at war, but not skilled enough to not get mauled in battle. Though this is ill luck as much as flaws in training. Do you recall your clan?"

She blinks at that.

"You do not strike me as a city elf. Your body is clearly honed for physical activity." She thinks there's a twinkle of humor there, but it's gone before it can settle into something more definitive, and he is back to neutral. Good, because she is distinctly not in the mood for insinuating jokes. "I thought you Dalish." He frowns at that. "Though you are unmarked, so perhaps not. In any case, your memory will likely return in time, and you will solve that mystery yourself."

He gets up, very clearly done with the conversation.

"I have another difficult patient to care for, and if she does not make it, then I fear things will truly become desperate. When you are sufficiently recovered, seek out master Adan. He is as likely to blow you up as he is to prescribe you the correct tonic, but I would take the chance. Your ribs will keep paining you without an elfroot infusion."

"Thank you, uh…"

"Solas. Mend well."

When the door closes, Margo throws off the blanket. There is no mirror, but a wash basin stands next to the bed, its water dark. As a reflective surface, it's enough to get an idea of her appearance. The face that stares back is not her own. It has high cheekbones and large grey eyes, instead of her hazel ones. Its hair is flaxen, and tied back in a braid. It is younger than her, but not by much - late twenties to her 31. There is dried blood caked around her hair line. This body is shorter, narrower, with clear but lean muscles and a criss crossing of new and old scars. A bad one, pink and raised, bisects her abdomen.

And her ears are pointy.

"Who the hell are you?" she asks the water.

She is still naked, so she looks around the room. There is a set of clothes on top of a chest, and unless she wants to wander around in the buff, she better tackle them. Fortunately, they are functional enough that everything makes sense. And they are comfortable. A simple set of soft leather pants, cotton shorts of some sort that she assumes are underwear, a set of three bandages that she decides are for wrapping: one set for her chest, two for her feet, in lieu of socks. A linen shirt and a fur lined leather coat, well worn, with the strong smell of wood fires. It takes a few tries with the bandages, but the rest proceeds smoothly.

She notices the book when she's looking for a pair of shoes. It's propped on a shelf, its spine worn and a little greasy from handling, the gold lettering almost faded, but legible.

When she deciphers the author's name, the feeling is a nauseating mix of relief and dread. She supposes this is what "awe" feels like. The spine reads "The Botanical Compendium." By Ines Arancia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by Ines Arancia, whose formularies have truly universal appeal.
> 
> Next up: A new and unpleasant world


	2. Transplanted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo gets an introduction to Haven, Varric comes to the rescue, and the Spymaster has ways of making you talk.

She locates her boots by the door, and tucks the Compendium into her coat before pulling them on. They are wet and muddy from melting snow, and caked with a kind of rusty clumpy mix, like ash and dry blood. Come to think of it, that's probably exactly what it is. They are still dry inside, so Margo files that away as a win.

She stalls at the threshold. The air is brisk with mountain snow, but it has a layered richness to it underneath the crisp frost — wood smoke, roasting meat, a trace of sulfur and hot metal. She catches a whiff of manure, but even that isn't an entirely familiar odor. She has a vague suspicion that the beasts that produced the shit in question wouldn't be found in any zoology book she's ever seen.

And then she looks at the sky — and gapes. She has no way of describing it, really. It's like a giant cyclone hovering above the mountain, except that cyclones don't usually come in lime green. And there's something about it that looks wrong, and it makes her think of her itchy hands and of the nagging little voice-intent at the bottom of the death tunnel. _Let me in._

"Ain't Kansas indeed," she mutters, because hysterical sarcasm seems a better option than just plain old hysterics.

"Hey, knife ear!" She turns her head in the direction of the sound, and it takes her a second to decide that this is some form of address, and that it's directed at her. And that, judging by the leers, it's derogatory.

A couple of large dudes in – well, let's call a spade a spade – full armor, are milling about on a pair of crates next to a wall. It's hard to tell the time, but Margo guesses that it's creeping towards evening. Either that, or they're shirking whatever duties full armor presupposes in favor of some kind of game. Dice, she decides, though they're using what looks suspiciously like the ankle bones of some small animal. Well, at least some of the laws of physics are the same. There's gravity. The ground is solid, the sky is above, water is wet, strangers, conveniently, speak a variant of English. And assholes are a truly universal phenomenon.

"What are yer gaping at? You addled?" Tweedledee volunteers. He's poorly shaven, and sports a large plum sized bruise on the side of his face. Probably had it coming, too. His buddy – Margo decides he's the Tweedledum of the pair – just leers. He's missing a front tooth, and the gum might or might not be abscessed. "Go fetch some beer for your betters."

Margo briefly wonders if this is a gender or a species pecking order. She decides that it's probably both. Regardless, give an inch, loose a mile, so she plants her hands on her hips and hopes her patented withering stare, honed on recalcitrant students, will translate into – well, whatever body Margo Duvalle, PhD and body snatcher extraordinaire has been relocated into.

It doesn't quite have the desired effect.

"Definitely addled. Fetch. Us. Some. Beer. Wench." Tweedledee articulates with exaggerated slowness, and adds a gesture that mimes drinking.

"You think she's a mute, Marek? Lets see if she understands signs." Tweedledum points at her, and then proceeds to pat his crotch, and follows this up with hand motions that probably mean to convey copulation, but look more like he's trying to fit a large barrel around his privates.

What was the alchemist's name? Adan? She levels what she hopes is a cool stare at Tweedledum. "If you're having troubles down there, I suggest you go see Adan and get a salve. Wouldn't want it to get worse, you know how these things can get. First you stick it in funny places, and then – _poof_ – it shrivels and falls off."

Tweedledum gapes at her, clearly considering what to do about the insult. The other Tweedle just bursts out laughing. "You asked for that one. The Commander said no picking on the knife-ears, 'cuz we're all working together, what with the Breach and all. Though I say the sweet little rabbit can still go fetch us our drink, and look pretty doing it. Right, love?"

"Go fetch your own beer, you plum faced gibbon."

This, Tweedledee doesn't take well, though Margo thinks he's a bit confused about the whole gibbon bit. The two start rising slowly, and she decides that antagonizing the goons was probably not the smartest strategy, but her uncle had told his army hazing stories when she was a kid, and from those she knows that it's better to get the beating out of the way early, but make it not worth the effort for the assailants on future occasions. She figures, same rules apply.

"Wow, wow, wow, lads, let's all settle down, and play nice."

The new addition to their little dog and pony show is probably four feet eleven, at best. He's stocky, blond, with a large square jaw and a crossbow the size of a hand-held cannon slung across his back. And he is most definitely not quite Homo Sapiens either. But he swaggers over, and plants himself right in between the two Tweedles and herself.

"What's this to you, Varric? She's just some elf."

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong, my friend. She's not just some elf. She is one of the Nightingale's elves. Do you really want to piss off our spymaster? I mean, don't let me stop you, it's your suicide, but being the altruistic guy that I am, I'd advise against it."

That seems to give the Tweedles pause, and Margo decides to file this away for future reference. Nightingale, Spymaster. What does it mean that she was hers? Are elves slaves here? Servants? She's guessing both, but this, if nothing else, is an army. There might be other hierarchies at play.

"Come on, Prickly. Walk with me."

All things being equal, following this Varric seems like the best possible alternative among a range of shitty options. She walks besides him down the street, between the small wooden houses, towards a building that appears to be a smithy. Behind it, against the evening gloaming, she can see the black outline of a trebuchet.

"Thanks for the help. Your name is Varric?"

He does a mock curtsey. "Varric Tethras, storyteller, upstanding businessman, and dashing rogue — all at your service. And this beauty is Bianca." He gestures to the crossbow.

"Varric, Bianca. A pleasure."

He shoots her an approving grin.

"They're not all quite this bad, you know. These two are particularly obnoxious, but Curly is keeping most of his people more or less in check. Everyone's on edge, though — and just when we seem to have a shot at fixing this mess, it's not even clear that the Trevelyan gal will recover. You're new with the Nightingale, aren't you?"

Margo shrugs. "Honestly, I don't know. I must have gotten knocked out during the battle… so I can't seem to remember much at all."

Varric whistles between his teeth. "Amnesia, heh. Happened to someone I knew once. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, either. But you came through for me in that miserable pit. The rage demon popped out of the ground — as they tend to, pesky bastards — and he would've chewed off my head if you hadn't diced him first. Distracted it from Lady Travelyan and her green glowing hand of doom to boot, so we all owe you one. No wonder Chuckles has been fussing over you like a mother hen — he doesn't usually bother quite this much with the common soldiers. And speaking of Chuckles, there's someone who needs to sleep. He's practically keeling over, running around trying to heal everyone."

Margo tries to process all of this. "Chuckles is Solas? And this Lady Travelyan, she is someone important?"

Varric nods. "Looks like just another hothouse nobleman's daughter to me. Not a good fighter, either. Nice enough, I suppose, but a bit... peculiar. But Seeker Pentaghast and our resident apostate seem to think she's going to solve this here problem we're having." He gestures vaguely at the sky. "Rare occasion when those two will actually agree on something. Then again, she's been out of commission for several days, so I wouldn't hold my breath just yet."

Margo isn't sure what a resident apostate is — an apostate that gets a stipend, maybe? But she looks up at the sky. "What is this? I take it it's not normal?"

Varric gives her a suspicious side glance. "You did hit your head pretty hard, didn't you, Prickly. Well. No, normal is very far from how one might describe it. After the Conclave went up in smoke, along with everyone in it — this thing opened up and it started raining demons. Anyway, I'm the logistics guy — if you want a more philosophical explanation, I'd go harass Chuckles."

Margo nods. Sounds like whatever it is, it works as some kind of portal. To a hell dimension apparently. And it's impossible to believe, of course, except nothing about her predicament is believable either, and as far as explanations go, a hell dimension portal at least fits with the whole "and then my consciousness was ripped out of reality and ended up meat-puppeting a not-quite-human scarred warrior chick who is also, apparently, an elf. And possibly a spy."

"Varric, do you have a sense of where I would have kept my things?"

The man — gnome… dwarf…— shrugs.

"The tents out that way, probably. Though you were with the Nightingale's scouts, and I'm not sure where they're camped out. You should probably report back to her, by the way. She wasn't pleased when they brought you back all… mangled, and whatnot. Said you weren't meant to be out there in the first place."

Varric deposits her in front of the forge. "We left your weapons with Master Harritt. Lets see if he's already pawned them off to someone else."

The blacksmith is a bald-headed fellow with a red beard and a handlebar mustache. Margo decides he would look especially memorable in a cowboy hat. He gives her a quick look, and then nods, as if answering a question that she didn't know she was asking.

"Got them right here. Sharpened them for you, too. They're nice pieces, not showy, but well balanced. Good steel."

He hands her two sheathed daggers and Margo decides that it would at least be a good idea to make a show of looking like she's used them before. She unsheathes one partially, and tries the blade with her thumb. It is most definitely sharp.

"Thank you for taking care of them, Master Harritt," she offers, politely. The harnesses are simple enough that she manages to strap them onto herself without too much embarrassment. She still notes Varric's curious squint at her fumbling. But it could have been much worse. There's a kind of muscle memory to the motion, where even though she doesn't know off hand how to do it, it is as if her body remembers.

"Don't mention it. You find yourself wanting something fancier, bring me some materials to work with, and I'll see what I can do."

She turns to Varric. "I hate to impose on your time, but would you take me to… Leliana?"

Varric gives her a sly little grin. "You know, Prickly, you sure can talk a fancy line when you want something. Ah, don't mind me. This is what friends are for. But you owe me a beer later."

Margo nods. She decides she likes the dwarf.

"Varric!"

They both turn with a start, and Margo represses the urge to hide behind her escort's back. A tall, dark woman with a large sword at her hip is bearing down on them with the finality of an assault tank.

"Where do you think you are taking her? Her patrol was scouting the Sword Coast before that whole mess with the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Leliana will want this information now — not in some undetermined future."

"Relax, Seeker. We're on it. But she won't be much help quite yet — she seems to have lost her memory."

This gives the formidable woman pause. "Oh. I am sorry. This must be difficult." There's an awkward silence. "I am Seeker Pentaghast."

Margo shakes the outstretched hand, which crushes hers in a steely grip. "A pleasure. I would tell you my name too, but…" she trails off, and shrugs. If you're going to adopt someone else's identity, might as well do it right, she decides.

This earns her a brusque nod and a dismissal.

"Bad blood between you?" she asks Varric.

He chuckles. "Let's just say the Seeker enjoys findings things about me that she can disapprove of."

They make their way through the little town, towards the looming temple at the crest of the hill. Varric points out a tent. "Nightingale's in there somewhere. And that's as far as I go. I like to stay out of out spymaster's way as much as I can."

Margo shoots him a disapproving glance. "Et tu, Brutus," she mumbles, and then catches herself.

"What's that, Prickly?"

"Fine, but now I only owe you a half-pint."

Varric laughs. "Like bargaining with the Carta. I'll catch you later."

Margo watches him waddle down the hill, and she tries to brace herself for what's to come. She has a distinct feeling that this Leliana is not someone to trifle with.

Inside the tent, it is barely warmer than outside. A thin red-headed woman leans over a map fixed to the wooden crate beneath it with a set of daggers. She doesn't turn around when Margo enters. "Ah, it is good of you to come by. Charter spoke highly of you, I would have been disappointed if you had died. Please report on your mission."

Margo finds herself at a loss. There is no way she can bullshit her way out of this one — but then this Leliana isn't likely to tolerate inefficiency. There's nothing quite as sobering as the acute feeling of your own disposability.

"I… I was injured in the last battle, and have lost much of my memories" she tries. The redhead turns around and fixes her with a gaze that could pierce concrete, and then a couple of plates of Kevlar on top of it, just to make sure you knew it wasn't messing around.

"How very convenient for you, isn't it? Especially since the rest of your patrol to the Coast didn't make it. So, you have nothing to say about the Qunari presence there, I suppose?"

Whatever the Qunari are, it is at least quite clear that their presence is not a source of great joy for the spymaster. "No." She tries to think fast. It's funny how that never works out in practice. "Solas claims the memories will be back in time, but until then, I'm afraid I am not much use to you." All things being equal, better to state the truth.

Leliana levels her with a speculative gaze. "Indeed not. But Solas also claimed that you had died, and later claimed that you would not recover, so I would not put too much faith in what the apostate _claims_."

Margo hides a wince. It doesn't require a PhD in history to realize that things aren't going well. The vassal of my vassal and all that. She is too ill informed about this place to navigate the underwater political currents, and if she doesn't learn quickly, she isn't going to last the week.

Leliana leans forward. It isn't exactly looming yet — more like hovering alarmingly. "There are very simple ways to find out whether you are lying. None of them are pleasant, of course. But if you are Charter's creature — as I am sure you are — then you know all of this already and have likely taken measures in anticipation. Unless, that is, you are an agent of the Qun."

With this conclusion delivered, the spymaster considers her with unpleasant interest, much like a crow when it's debating which eye to start plucking out first. Margo feels the ground shifting from under her feet, the unmistakable vertigo of true terror making her limbs go limp and her face turn numb.

"Unless you are simply a pawn in a game, and don't know your own masters… Memory loss can be simulated — up to a degree, of course. But it can also be induced, with magic. Or alchemy. Yes. This is a plausible explanation." Leliana seems to come to a decision then."I would suggest that you recover your memories, and quickly. I need the information from your patrol. If you fail to do so on your own, you will receive some encouragement from me. Few survive that process. You have three days. I do not recommend trying to run, my spies will find you."

With that, the spymaster turns back to her map.

There is a raven croaking from a nearby roof, its caw distinctly sarcastic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by Leliana, who does not like surprises.
> 
> Next up: Margo gets a new job


	3. E is for Elfroot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo avails herself of a job, and then encounters a Herald, a mage, and some local fauna.

Margo walks down the hill in a daze, her heart beating painfully in her chest. Her new body — and she is a bit unsettled by the fact that she is beginning to think of it in proprietary terms — is much better at processing adrenaline than her original one. Good thing, too, because the sense of primordial dread hasn't just set up camp. By this point it's roasting marshmallows and telling dirty jokes.

What is the next step? There appear to be several power brokers here — Leliana and her network of spies is one. Clearly, Seeker Pentaghast and whoever “Curly” is, are in charge of _something_. Solas and Varric appear to be lower on the food chain. She is jolted out of her thoughts by the beginning of a commotion. An elf runs by, screaming something about someone being awake. People rush back and forth in chaotic agitation, like a bunch of ants whose anthill got knocked over. She's jostled to the front of a quickly forming crowd.

Margo watches with the others, as a woman emerges from one of the log houses, and scurries up the hill. She overhears hushed conversations — something about an “Andraste,” prisoners, and something or other having to do with The Breach (audibly capitalized), which she at least knows is the big nasty hellmouth in the sky. Also, some dude named Harold, whoever he is.

The culprit of the social upheaval walks by, and Margo has a chance to get a look at her. Well, she wasn't expecting this. She's human and young — late teens, or perhaps early twenties. Pretty, in a soft sort of way, without the compact, lean hardness of the other soldiers. The girl is wearing some kind of light armor, but it looks out of place, like something more decorative than functional. No one needs a bustier like that if they're trying to slice someone's head off, unless it's meant as a distraction tactic. And she looks… mortified doesn't even begin to cut it. 

Margo feels a sudden pang of sympathy. Every incoming freshman class has these girls, with their soft outer shell still so fragile, embarrassed at the slightest sign of attention. It sometimes takes a semester to coax them out, managing class dynamics so that they don't get trampled over by the louder kids in the group. Kids – and at this age, they are still barely out of childhood, really – can be the cruelest little shits when they sense weakness.

This isn't much different, she realizes. And the crowd, for all its awestruck whispers, is heterogeneous. Many stare with open speculation, and a few with downright hostility.

Then the young woman is met by Seeker Pentaghast and a tall blond fellow with a strange sort of fur collar that looks like the beast it came from isn't fully convinced that it should be dead yet. They flank the poor girl, and usher her out of sight, up the path and into the temple looming at the crest of the hill.

The crowd mills about for a bit before dispersing. 

Margo decides that her best option is to look for her body's belongings. Maybe there is a convenient and wonderfully detailed diary to be found, one that will expound in details on her host's biography.

Except, of course, she might as well get a divining rod, and go a-looking. She walks around the town, then around the camps a few times, hoping — and dreading — that someone would recognize her. No one does. She asks about Charter, but mostly receives shrugs. She makes eye contact with a few elves, but they just offer harried nods, and go about their business. At length, the sky darkens, and the camp begins to settle for the night. She watches small groups of soldiers walk over to the tavern. Even Varric is nowhere to be seen. Finally, an elven woman who looks like a kitchen worker, and who is hauling a box of carrot-shaped root vegetables takes pity on Margo’s undoubtedly miserable expression, and informs her that Charter and her scouts are on patrol for a fortnight, based on the ration schedule.

"Two weeks?" Margo squeaks out, horrified.

"Apologies!" the elf mumbles, and flees.

She sort of stumbles upon the alchemist's hut, more by smell than anything else. The small courtyard is secluded and quiet, but the door remains ajar, letting out light and a stream of mixed odors — bitter and astringent, spicy and acrid, musky and sweet waft through the evening air. She hurries in.

A man is leaning over an alembic, and even if Margo doesn't understand half of it, it's pretty clear he's swearing a blue streak.

"Master Adan?" she tries, hopeful.

"What?" He straightens and looks at her. Tall, dark, and grumpy, that one. And bearded. She wonders what's going on with the shaved head / full beard combo so many of the local men seem to be sporting. This doesn't seem to be a functional decision — if you can get a close shave on your head, why not just go to town and shave the whole thing off?

"Well, don't just stand there. Pass me the reagent — no, not that one, the blue one. Are you blind, lass? That’s green. I said  _ blue _ . Yes, the one on the top shelf. Yes, yes, the one with the white sediment at the bottom."

She lifts the correct bottle gingerly. The original one she tried to grab in her panic is perhaps closer to teal, but the difference is subtle. The liquid inside the flask is viscous, with a murky precipitate. She doesn't dare uncork it before she passes it to him, but the alchemist — because that's what he is, a bonafide fucking alchemist in the flesh — doesn't seem to mind. He unstoppers it with his teeth, spits out the cork, and pours a healthy swig of the stuff. Straight down his gullet.

Margo stares. "Should you be drinking the…um…ingredients?" she asks before she can think of a more diplomatic way of phrasing the question.

"No. But they don't pay me enough for this idiocy. Do I look like a healer to you? No. Does this place look like it sources enough elfroot for the amount of soldiers they're getting butchered every day? No. Give me something to blow up, and I'll brew you a mean grenade and you can go blow it up to your heart's content. I didn't sign up to play nursemaid."

Margo looks around. Dry herbs are stacked in large sacks along the wall. Minerals, animal parts, metal ores, and things that she can't even begin to identify line all available shelf space. A work station of sorts with an alembic, a mortar and pestle, and a calcinator occupy a good part of the single room. She notices a rudimentary mill in the corner.

"You need a hand?"

She's not sure if this is the right move, but what other options are there? And the space has the benefit of being familiar. Not the specific ingredients, perhaps, but the bookcase is full of tomes — quite a few by Auntie Ines, by the looks of it — and there is a very slim chance that her familiarity with her own world’s version of alchemy may port, at least to some extent, to whatever this place is. “ _ Oh, a degree in early modern history. And what are you going to do with that?”  _ Now wouldn’t  _ that _ be vindication. 

"I need twenty hands, but I'll settle for two. You're a herbalist?"

She frowns, wondering how not to oversell her knowledge without being told to scat. "I dabble."

That seems to satisfy the guy. "Maker’s balls, I'll take a dabbler any day over the brainless clods Cullen sends my way. I'm not always sure they can tell a plant from their own ass. Forget trying to get them to bring anything specific — they'll just haul back whatever they stumbled on first. Last week I asked for spindleweed, and one of them brought me  _ hay _ ."

"Can I use your library to get myself up to speed? I… have some memory loss."

Adan's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. " _You're_ the contused one? Solas mentioned you, but by the way he described you, I thought you'd be…"

"What?"

He seems embarrassed for a second. "Nothing, don't mind me. No offense, but you people have some strange metaphors."

Well, now she's annoyed. Because what she really needs on top of this otherwise phenomenal day is a bald-pated elf dispensing questionable figures of speech behind her back.

"Did he leave something for me? A tonic?"

"Nope. I usually have standard issue healing potions, but you can learn to brew that yourself in a couple of hours if you don't already know how. You'll need to go gather the elfroot yourself, because I'm almost out. Solas mentioned some fussy draught — for your memory — but I'm swamped, so it ain’t gonna happen tonight. Maybe tomorrow we can tackle it.” He raises a finger. “ _ If _ you help.” And then, for some reason, the alchemist lowers his voice and looks around furtively, as if he is expecting some previously concealed eavesdropper to pop out of the shadows with a triumphant  _ Aha!  _ “I'll even pay you, but not much. And I need you on hand, so you’ll sleep in the attic.” He crosses his arms over his chest, the posture rather defensive. “You’re not afraid of bats, now, are you?"

Margo is so relieved and happy, she could kiss him. "Are you kidding? I adore bats. They are the greatest! There should be more of them! And if you wait for long enough, they'll make shilajit for you."

Adan gives her an incredulous look. "You really are a strange lass, aren't you. They make what, now?"

Margo realizes this is probably not the right time to launch into an exegesis on Himalayan rock oil. But in for a penny, and all that. "Do you have this stuff? It's very potent — it's this soft dark material that you sometimes find on cave walls. Looks like a mineral, but too soft?"

He gives her a suspicious look, but then his expression clears into something more enthusiastic. "Wait, I knew a trader from Seheron once. He stocked something he called ‘Dwarven Oil.’ Fantastic stuff. Looks a bit like what you're describing, once you pry it out of the little jars they stuff it into — you say it's made by bats?"

He probably isn't interested in the biochemistry debates over shilajit, so Margo bites her tongue, and makes a non-committal affirmative noise.

"Huh. Well then, you interested? You'll need to get a go ahead from Commander Rutherford, though. And tell him not to send me more of his knuckleheads."

"Yes! I'll work hard, and won't bring you any hay unless you specifically request it."

"Best thing I've heard all day," he grumbles. "Which should tell you how my day's been."

She nods.  _ You and me both, buddy _ , she thinks to herself.

***

Adan, general grumpiness notwithstanding, is so pleased to have availed himself of a semi-competent helper that he shoves a plate of food at her as soon as it is brought on by a stressed-looking elf. Margo thanks the alchemist — and the young woman — profusely, embarrassing both in the process, and proceeds to scarf down the grub. It's simple stew with bread — nondescript vegetables with unidentified meat — but it tastes like the best thing in the world.

She is really going to have to think about logistics. Although it would seems that she has managed to secure lodging, wages, and food, all in one fell swoop. Not bad for a first day this side of the looking glass.

Maybe after she goes to sleep, she’ll actually wake up from this shitshow. 

Dinner finished, she walks out of the cabin in search of the aforementioned Commander Rutherford — presumably, the same personage as Varric’s “Curly.” Before she leaves, she lugs half of Adan's library up to the attic — which is less a testimony to the limited reading materials, and more to her requisitioned body’s strength (and to Adan’s apparently rather socialist attitude towards his books). She is tempted to simply settle in on the hay mattress and dive in, but it seems like it's a better tactic to play by the rules.

Most of the tomes are by Auntie Ines, and the scholar in her is perplexed by this. Her experience suggests that this place — whatever it is — should have a developed pharmacopeia. By Earth standards, they should be using hundreds of ingredients. Thousands of formulas. They clearly compound. They certainly have the equipment for complex processing, which suggests that the biochemistry of their drugs works by and large the same way. Distillation, calcination — hell, basic pulverization — all seem to proceed along at least somewhat familiar lines. So where is the scholarship? The many authors, the internal debates, the commentaries upon commentaries? The competing traditions? Unless Auntie Ines had some kind of ideological monopoly on the field. Was she a holy woman? Did her writing take on the authority of scripture? Or is Adan just partial to her works? Maybe this is a lineage thing. She should have asked if he had studied under her. Either way, she needs a proper library. And a year sabbatical. Yes, a sabbatical would be nice, then she could really settle in and cross reference this stuff. She won't have a computer to data mine the texts, but with enough time…

She is so absorbed by the prospect of analyzing the hypothetical formularies that she practically collides with the girl.

"Oh Andraste's tears, I am so sorry! I didn't see you! It gets so dark here at night, and I have no idea where the Apothecary is, and oh Maker, I didn't mean to… Oh, you're an elf! Not that I have anything against elves. Bann Trevelyan always says that we must respect the historical debt we owe your people. Oh. I'm making a fool of myself again, aren't I?"

This close up, the young woman is even shorter than Margo originally thought. "And I didn't even introduce myself. I'm Evelyn Trevelyan. But you can call me Evie if you want, everyone else does. At home I mean. Not here. They don’t call me Evie here. Just Lady Trevelyan. And now this ‘herald’ business. Which I guess is better than ‘prisoner,’ but I keep waiting for someone to get confused and call me Harold Trevelyan. I don’t think there were any Harolds, at least not that I remember… Not that I remember very well. Oh."

Margo smiles at her, she hopes reassuringly. "It's nice to meet you, Evie."

"Do… Do you know where the apothecary is? I'm supposed to pick up a tonic from Master Adan, but I haven't met him before, and I don't think I can recognize him based on Commander Cullen's description. Not that Commander Cullen's description is bad, I don't mean that! It's just that he said that Master Adan has a beard and robes. But they all have beards here. And what if he doesn't wear robes all the time. I mean, what if he changes into armor, or something? Then I wouldn't even know what he looks like, and then I'll just be running around asking random men if they're Master Adan, just based on the fact that they have a beard. And oh Maker, there are so many men here, so which one do I start asking first? And they all have beards. Or, at least, mustaches. What if Commander Cullen meant mustache, and not just beard? Does it count if they have just a beard, but not a mustache? If I at least knew what color beard he has, then I'd have somewhere to start, but then, Commander Cullen didn't say anything about color. Am I talking too much? Aunt Lucille says I talk too much, all the time, and that it isn't proper for a Lady, but how am I supposed to know when you're meant to be talking, and when you're meant to not be talking…"

She trails off and kind of deflates, her shoulders slumping and her eyes downcast.

Oh dear. Margo adopts her kindest motherly voice, which her new body’s gravely, smoky contralto doesn’t lend itself to particularly well. She can probably do sultry like nobody's business. Kind and reassuring? Not so much.

"Evie, slow down, honey. It's all right. Do you want me to introduce you to Adan? I just met him, and he's… very nice."

But Evie, of course, picks up on that slight hitch of hesitation, because kids like her are extremely attuned to social cues, but don't quite know what to do about them yet. "He's not very nice, is he? He's probably really busy, what with all the wounded here. But maybe he's also very busy and not very nice, and then he's going to get mad if I disturb him. There was a wounded soldier I saw, and his wounds just aren't healing, and Solas said it's because sometimes demon wounds fester really fast, and then it gets in the blood and then… and then… and even magic doesn't work… I mean, I don't think Solas is visiting him much, so does that mean he's just going to lay there and not get better, ever? And…" - she whispers this - "And die?"

Hoo, boy. By this point, the girl is sniffling. That is a whole new level beyond "hothouse flower," to cite Varric. That's downright hydroponics. But to be fair, Margo feels for her. Whatever social world she came from, it seems even more removed from this place than Margo's own, if that's even possible.

"Alright, yes. He's not very nice, but that doesn't mean he's not a nice person. He's just sort of… grumpy and overworked. I'll introduce you two, and he's not going to give you any grief with me around." At least she hopes he won't. "You need a healing tonic, right?"

Evie just nods. Margo puts her arm around the girl to guide her back to the apothecary, and Evie leans into her, huddling for warmth as much as reassurance. You poor kid, Margo thinks. Speaking of uprooted and transplanted, she might not be the only one who isn't going to last a week around here.

They walk into the apothecary together. Master Adan is still fiddling with the alembic, and, at this point, Margo has the sneaking suspicion that he is using it for distinctly non-medicinal purposes, unless one counts moonshine as an analgesic. After all, an alembic is just a fancy word for a still.

"Master Adan? This is Evelyn Trevelyan, and she needs a healing potion."

"She does, does she?" Yup, the grumpiness factor has not gone down since the last time she saw him. Master Adan strikes her as a belligerent drunk. "Well, tough nug nuggets! I am all out. Which brings me to the whole point of our arrangement — I need more elfroot! So make yourself useful. Here, that can be your first assignment. Go gather some, boil a draught, and give it to her Ladyship here."

At this, he turns back to his moonshine experiments.

Interesting class dynamics. The spymaster would probably want to know about the grumbling proletariat, but Margo’s not about to tattle to this world's female version of Comrade Beria any time soon.

She assumes they've been summarily dismissed, but no. "Oh, and while you're at it. Master Taigan was working on something before the old man went off to meet his Maker. His house is out that way." Adan gestures vaguely in what is certainly an entirely random direction. "See if you can find some of his notes, and bring them back. He's got elfroot growing around there somewhere, too — how that thing manages on this snowy rock is beyond me, but who cares."

Margo exchanges a glance with Evie who looks equal measures terrified and demoralized. She winks at the girl, hoping Master Adan doesn't notice.

They walk outside. The little courtyard is so dark the walls of the nearby houses are barely visible. Overhead, the stars are faint — the glow from the hellmouth cyclone overpowers everything.

"We should probably wait until tomorrow morning to venture out, right?" Evie looks torn. "I think Solas is going to be really mad at me if I don't do as he says and drink the medicine, though. But…" She hesitates, and starts fiddling with the hem of her not very practical armor. Who the hell wants to fight in a corset, anyway? "Do you think it's really far, this house? Like, maybe it's not that far, and we can just go there really quickly. But wait, what if it's outside the enclosure? And what if there are beasts there. Like bears. Do you think there might be bears?"

Margo considers this. "Not this close to the camp. Even if there were bears, I'm going to bet they've all been killed, skinned, and eaten. Oh, I should ask Adan if he uses bear bile. That's a good one, bear bile. Common in most pharmacopoeias, unless you have some compunctions about using animal parts, which I don't think he does…"

She catches herself. Evie looks downright crestfallen. "I'm scared of bears. They're big, and they have these huge claws, and Bann Trevelyan says they are very dirty claws, so even when the bear just scratches you…"

"Alright. How about this..." Margo weighs her options. It's not like she has much of a chance to stand up to a bear — or anything else of the large carnivorous persuasion — but in the grand scheme of things, all the large carnivores in the vicinity would have been either driven out, or put to good use. "I owe Varric half a pint, but I don't have any money to buy it. So you and I are going to make a deal. You're going to have a drink with him in my stead, and I'm going to go look for elfroot and this Taigan fellow’s notes on whatever he was playing around with. And if I find them, then we'll go to Master Adan, and you're going to give him the notes, so he gets off his high horse and stops being a colossal asshat to you."

Evie giggles. And then sniffles again. "I've never heard this expression. It's funny. Is it Elvhen? Because it'd be kind of silly to put a hat on your butt, right? I mean, how would you hold it in place? You'd have to wander around sort of holding on to it, or it'll fall off. But I guess your butt would be warm, at least."

She sighs wistfully. The kid is so not dressed for the weather. "Let’s get you out of the cold, sweetheart. I bet Varric is already in the tavern."

Her guess is correct. The tavern — small, hot, and packed to the gills — does, in fact contain Varric, seated at a table in the far corner. He is surrounded by a small crowd of soldiers, all of them well into their cups and laughing uproariously at some yarn the dwarf is spinning. Margo notices that he talks with his hands a lot.

"Prickly!" Varric calls out from his seat. "Came by to pay your dues?"

Margo guides Evie to take a seat on the bench next to the dwarf. "Varric, you’ve met Evelyn Trevelyan, right?"

He smiles amiably enough, but it doesn't quite make it all the way to his eyes. It clicks, then. He's watching people very carefully, even as he distracts them with the whole jovial life-of-the-party shtick. Tricky tricky.

"I need to run an errand before I can come by. Would you mind keeping Evie company while I'm gone? I don't think it should take me more than an hour. And if it does, then send the rescue team, because I probably got into trouble."

Evie looks horrified at this.

"Yeah, yeah. Anything to get out of a debt. You sure you're not with the Carta?"

"As a matter of fact, since you bailed on me earlier, you technically owe  _ me _ a half-pint."

Varric snorts into his beer, and then her looks at her, eyes narrowed. "Forget the Carta. You're sure you're not secretly a dwarf, Prickly?”

The table explodes with laughter, and one of the soldiers claps Margo on the back. However different this world is, she gets this dynamic, the easy camaraderie. They're all working their asses off, and they get exhausted and unwind by drinking too much, because their lives are too precarious for thinking too far out into the future. They all walk through life with death on their heels.

"I'm good on my word, Varric. I'll come back in an hour, and you'll get your damn drink."

He looks reasonably appeased by this, so Margo jostles her way out into the night. 

***

The air outside is bitter cold, but at least the snow has stopped. The first person she runs into gives her directions to Master Taigan's old hut. Margo sets off at a comfortable run, enjoying her host body's athletic ease. She's still hoping that she won't run into any unwanted encounters on the way, but the night is encouragingly quiet, safe for the distant howling of something that very well might be wolves. But the sound appears remote, and in about fifteen minutes following a narrow path in the snow, she comes up on a log house.

Several tall vine-like creepers — that have absolutely no business standing upright based on their morphology — are growing out of the snowy crust around the cabin. Margo pulls out Auntie Ines's Compendium for a quick check. Sure enough, the gravity-defying flora is elfroot, if the stylized illustration is anything to go by.

Margo doesn't have a sack to gather them, but she wagers Master Taigan probably has something she can use. She tries the handle and cheers quietly when the door turns out to be unlocked. The inside is dusty, a rich botanical smell lingering in the habitation. She trails her fingers along the top of a counter and brings her fingertips to her nose. Sure enough, the dust is mostly plant matter, still odorous. One room has a different smell, sharp in a chemical way, like saltpeter and sulfur. Was Master Taigan experimenting with gunpowder? Notes are scattered everywhere. Margo begins to gather them, until she spots a knapsack lying in a corner. She empties it out, throwing the crumbling plant residue into the unlit fireplace, and she proceeds to stuff the writings inside the bag, with a quick mental note to go over them before handing them off to Evie. A cell phone camera would come in handy. She winces. This is going to have a steep learning curve.

She finds several empty burlap sack in the other room, folded neatly on top of a crate. Margo grabs one before leaving the house with a small pang of regret. The bookshelves are full of books. She wonders if it would be a faux pas to appropriate a few. Hell, she wouldn't mind requisitioning the entire house to herself. Unless this is where Adan is staying when he is not getting sloshed on dubious booze. Although why he would send her for the notes if this is where he actually lives is beyond her. Perhaps he has another place in the camp. How many houses can one alchemist have?

Outside, she makes quick work of the elfroot, using one of her daggers to dig the plants out of the frigid ground, after a mental apology to Master Harritt. Her hands quickly go numb from the cold, and by the time the burlap sack is three-quarters full, Margo is chilled to the bone and shivering. She's not sure how much time has passed, so she decides to head back, because turning into an icicle from over-enthusiastic herbalism would be a pretty damn stupid way to die. The knapsack sits awkwardly over her dagger harnesses, but she needs both hands to carry her botanical haul.

The howling picks up again, much closer this time. Best not linger. Margo breaks into a light jog, trying to follow the same path she used before. She can see more stars now, none of them arranged into familiar patterns.

There is a flash of yellow — then another one, off to the left, close to the flank of the hill that frames her path. She picks up speed, a sudden jolt of fear icing her spine. Two shadows separate from the darkness at the bottom of the slope and begin to glide apace with her, some twenty feet away, but on a narrowing trajectory. Shit shit shit. The snow is hindering her progression, her footing unsure on the slippery ice crust.

Another flash of yellow catches her gaze — this one straight ahead — and then a deep, low howl resonates somewhere to her right, from the direction of the ravine.

She's being herded.

The adrenaline gives her a jolt of energy, but Margo’s not naïve enough to think she can outrun a wolf pack. As far as bad decisions go, this one is proving remarkably stupid. This is how one doesn’t even make it into the footnotes.

Something blue gleams ahead, and then a purple jolt of electricity that looks quite a bit like a lightning bolt strikes the ground ahead of her. The pyrotechnics are followed by a distinctly lupine yelp, and she feels rather than sees a dark outline bound off in the direction of the ravine. No doubt to complain to its comrades about the unpredictable weather.

She pushes her body to move faster in the hopes that the old adage holds true, and lightning doesn't strike twice in the same spot — and she runs smack into a familiar elf with a large wooden stick. For a split second, in the dwindling blue afterglow that surrounds him, he looks ethereal. Of course, in practice, it turns out that he isn’t. When momentum carries her forward, the impact is anything but ghostly.

They do an awkward sort of twirl where they both try to keep each other standing, but the entire enterprise fails, and Margo slips and collapses on her back, dragging the elf down with her. He lands on top of her with a soft "oof", nose to nose. The fellow is distinctly more solid than he looks. They stare at each other for a split second, and Margo vaguely registers that he has a rather charming dimple on his chin, and a sliver of a scar on his forehead. And then the elf makes a flustered sound and rolls off her, scrambling to his feet and adopting a fighting stance. She follows him up, but not knowing what a fighting stance might look like in her case, bounces on the balls of her feet.

"I really think we should just run."

He doesn't seem to find much fault with that argument, and they scramble up the path. There is a sort of glowing circle around him that seems to maintain pace with them, and Margo wonders — a bit dementedly — if he's carrying glow sticks under his tunic. Until her brain is forced to accept the idea that this is some kind of magic.

They skid into the camp's enclosure, both winded and gulping for air. At least the howling, while unmistakably displeased by this turn of events, remains well behind them.

"Have you…" he gasps "...lost all common sense, along with your memories?"

She wants to argue with him, but… Well. He's not exactly wrong. Instead, Margo waves her burlap sack — which she is still clutching in a death grip — by way of an explanation. "I got carried away."

The bald elf does not seem appeased by this. Quite the opposite, in fact.

"Carried away?  _ Carried away _ ? One gets carried away looking at beautiful things. Or poring over an old tome of ancient knowledge. One gets carried away at a lover's touch. One does  _ not _ get ‘carried away’ stuffing  _ plants _ in a  _ sack _ ."

Margo blinks at this tirade. "You are taking this somewhat personally."

He exhales in frustration, and turns away, chin high, jaw clenched. The pose is kind of ridiculous, as far as pantomimes of displeasure go, but... It looks fairly organic on him. After a few seconds, his stance softens a bit. "I take this personally because I did not go through the trouble of putting you back together from your rather disassembled state only to see you subsequently ripped apart by wolves."

Which, of course, begs the question of why he went through said trouble. Some kind of Homo Elveticus solidarity? Unless, of course, this elf and her host body have a history. Could this be the case? He did just mention lovers, which, as far as the whole tirade went, was a bit of a non sequitur. But he hadn't acted like they were particularly familiar earlier.

"I apologize. I… am not quite myself these days. Did we know each other well before I lost my memories?"

He squints at her, suddenly cautious. "About as well as any of the strangers assembled here." There is something assessing to his expression, like he is trying to figure out what might be inside a locked box just by shaking it.

Well, that is as vague a statement as it gets. How familiar  _ are _ the locals with each other? Margo frowns. Maybe this is a cult. Because if there’s anything that could improve this day even more, it’s most certainly cultists. 

"What were you doing all the way out there? I, at least, have an excuse." She waves her sack again. The elf, bless him, looks only more disgusted.

"And a poor one at that. Can Adan not send some of Cullen's men to do the grunt work?"

"They tend to bring him… the wrong things."

The elf — who goes by Solas, Margo recalls — cocks an eyebrow, and for a second there is a sparkle of humor in his eyes, which, in the unsteady light of the torches, shine darkly. Whatever humor tried to sprout, it is smothered under more peevishness. "I enjoy walking outside of the confines of Haven. It clears the mind," he volunteers. 

She examines him more closely. What is going on with all these people not dressed for the weather? But he doesn't seem to be suffering from the cold. In fact, he is walking around by and large barefoot. If this is a habit, his feet should look more like hooves, but they seem fine. Not even particularly blue. This climate resistance doesn't seem to be a species feature either, because Margo is still freezing, despite warm clothes and their recent run.

"Anyway.” She clears her throat. Minimally, it would behoove her to be polite. He did, in fact, help her — twice, now. “I should thank you. Both for patching me up, and for the assist with the wolves. Is there anything you need? Varric mentioned that you were overwhelmed with too many patients. Are you a healer?"

"Yes, Master Tethras does have a tendency to ‘mention’ things." The elf doesn't seem too impressed by this fact. "To answer your question, no — healing magic is not my specialty. But I must admit that I am confused by your offer." At this, he steps closer, apparently searching her face for something. He doesn't go as far as to take her chin in his hand and start tilting her head every which way, but there's something about his body language that suggests he's sorely tempted to do just that. "You are not a city elf. You speak too confidently, you do not defer and cower and apologize at every second, even when you are clearly at fault. But where is your Vallaslin? I thought, perhaps, it was too faint to see — a lighter hue — but it would appear you truly are unclaimed."

"I can't answer that question," Margo says. Because, obviously, she can't. She has no clue what a Vallaslin is, though evidence seems to suggest that it's either warrior paint, or, more likely, a facial tattoo. She doesn’t like the sound of “unclaimed” one bit, though. Are Vallaslins some kind of brand? 

Hell on a stick, are these slaver cultists? Cultist slavers?

"Because you cannot remember, or because you are unwilling? You are one of Leliana's scouts, are you not? Are you bound by the rules of your guild?"

Margo tries to think on her feet. One way or another, she needs to learn about her host's life. If she cannot find her things — or if her host's things don't have anything useful by way of information that might appease Comrade Nightingale — the rest of her life here is going to be nasty, brutish, and short. Unless… What it really boils down to, is whether or not she should trust this Solas character. 

Well. He  _ did _ help, for whatever reason.

"I truly cannot remember. And I need to, because otherwise Leliana will go digging for the information she wants, and she didn't seem to think I'd particularly enjoy the process."

At that Solas makes a surprised little noise that sounds an awful lot like a chuckle. "Indeed, I would imagine you would not."

"And in the interest of not wasting your labor in putting me back in a single piece, I was wondering if you knew of anything that might… jolt a body's memories?"

He narrows his eyes at her. "A  _ body's _ memories? That is a rather curious formulation. Do you not mean  _ your _ memories?"

She shrugs. "That's a philosophical question, isn't it? Are our memories stored in our bodies, or our spirit? If they're stored entirely in our spirit, then how do you account for muscle memory, or any other embodied skill?"

He looks surprised, and then, slowly, his expression turns intrigued. "That is an interesting question. Even if the spirit is damaged beyond the point where its experiences could be restored, perhaps the body retains an imprint of the spirit's life. I will have to consider this." He taps his chin, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet, and Margo smiles to herself. She knows that look. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the look of intellectual curiosity. She can work with that.

"It's a plausible theory, isn't it? So even if parts of a person’s spirit are damaged, the body might store something of its past experiences, even if they aren't tinged with emotions or particular context, I suppose."

She smiles at him, because damn, for a second, this is so familiar that it almost feels like her old normal — however brief the reprieve, it's actually pleasant to be able to simply stand there, forget about her outlandish predicament, and debate cosmological models.

The look of curiosity on the elf’s face turns into something almost close to pleasure, and he returns her smile. It’s a nice smile, she decides. Sweet, and a little cheeky. Then his expression shutters. "It would explain why the Tranquil retain their skills."

The euphoria fades as quickly as it manifested. This isn't a model. It's her new reality. Since she has no idea what he means, Margo just nods. The cogs are clearly turning in his head, and she doesn't want to interrupt this process lest she loses the opportunity to get some valuable insight on a possible solution to her problem. 

"I cannot help but notice that your use of the term ‘spirit’ is somewhat... unusual. Do you mean  _ any  _ spirit?"

Uh-oh. They're getting into murkier waters. But if she can get herself relocated into an entirely different body and realm, and still, somehow, function… 

"Theoretically? Yes, why not. Though my guess would be that the longer a body is separated from its spirit – again, hypothetically speaking — the more difficult it would be to retrieve anything useful." 

The elf gives her a very odd look, his expression suddenly guarded. Oh, shit, what did she say? She makes herself shrug. “You mentioned it yourself — I did die out there.”

“You appear to be very much alive now,” he offers after a pause. 

Margo suppresses a frown. She has the distinct feeling that there is another part to his utterance, one he chose to keep to himself. 

Is he… flirting?

“Alive, yes, but missing some relevant bits, apparently.” 

His lips twitch, and the spark of humor settles in his eyes. At this point, she should probably be alarmed at the warm and fuzzy sensation his expression sends down her spine, but she's too focused on trying to maneuver him into another bout of altruism to really consider her reaction too closely.

"I must admit, I was not expecting this evening to end on a conversation about the hermeneutics of memory, but…” Another half-smile. “Well, I will take a pleasant surprise where I can."

"Beats being eaten by wolves.” Margo grins. “And any time you want to debate hermeneutics, you let me know."

He chuckles softly at that. This time, there is no denying it — that feeling of tingly warmth at the quiet, smooth sound of it. Oh no no no. No developing crushes on random bookish elves that save you and your elfroot from the wolves. Bad brain… spirit… body…whatever.

She forces herself to snap back to the task at hand, which is to find out about the memory thing, and for a second she feels a little crass for pumping him for information. But he doesn't seem to mind, exactly, so perhaps no harm no foul. "So how would you go about it? What if my spirit is too badly damaged to recover the memories I need to… appease Leliana, especially not in three days. Is there a way to get these from my body, instead?"

She's hoping he'd point her to a formula – or, if she's really lucky maybe even a single ingredient. But instead he considers her, his eyes narrowed, expression hard again.

"She gave you only three days to recover?"

Margo shrugs. "Not very long, is it?"

“Long enough to see whether you will attempt to flee.” He hesitates, then appears to come to a decision. “There is perhaps a way that I might help. It would be best, however, if we kept this out of public view."

Margo narrows her eyes. “Why? What would it entail?”

It is the elf’s turn to shrug. “I came to Haven to volunteer my services, but I am still an apostate — though I suppose all mages are now technically apostates. Still, it would be preferable if we did not remind those in power of this fact. You will need to brew a draught beforehand, then come visit me tomorrow evening. Do you have anything to write on?”

She reaches into her coat and extracts the Compendium. He takes it from her, flips it to the last page, and then produces a piece of graphite from his pocket. He writes quickly. Margo leans in, reading the neat scroll.

"I am not certain that my recollection of the exact proportions is correct, but Master Adan might know it. If not, experiment. The draught should taste like a regeneration potion, but with more bite and a cloying aftertaste."

So, first things first, she will need to find out what a regeneration potion tastes like. "What does it do?"

He considers this. "My hope is that it would both enhance the efficacy and lessen the ill-effects of a spell."

Margo swallows, her throat suddenly dry. "And what spell are we talking about?"

He hesitates for a moment. "One that I learned during my travels through the Fade — a ritual performed to ease a spirit's passing, or its transformation. It draws on the surrounding environment to solidify the spirit's essence, and helps it to recall itself before it passes on. It may be possible to replicate it using a physical body, instead of the Fade's landscape, though I should warn you that I have never attempted it."

Sounds like something shamanic. Except, of course, the magic here seems a lot more material and immediate than in her world. But a ritual? She can work with a ritual.

"Sounds like a plan to me."

This time, he looks genuinely surprised — and not a little suspicious. "And you would trust an apostate you barely know to do this?"

Margo lifts a shoulder in a shrug. "Well, I believe you've already seen me naked. What's a little ritual?"

"It was in a medical capacity," he bristles, but the tips of his ears turn pink

She suppresses a smile. “So is this. And considering my best options are that or wandering around the camp at random to look for my things that may or may not contain anything useful, I'll take my chances. Seriously, if I were a spy, then how likely is it that I kept a detailed memoir of all my comings and goings conveniently tucked away in some knapsack?"

Solas has recovered from his mild embarrassment and is chuckling again, and yes, the warm fuzzies are turning into a conditioned reflex. Oh fuck, no, she doesn't need this.

"I would wager, rather low, unless you were terrible at your chosen occupation."

"Let’s play it safe, and assume I was at least reasonably competent, then. So, I will see you tomorrow evening. And now, if you will excuse me, I have to take care of Lady Trevelyan, because I left her with Varric, and she is either drunk, or horribly embarrassed, or likely both."

Solas nods, but his expression is back to aloof. As she passes him, he calls after her with a rather dry "goodnight."

So, the elf is mercurial, to boot. Good to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by tough nug nuggets. And bear bile, which has been traditionally used to treat liver and gall bladder problems, though there are much more humane, cruelty-free alternatives. But this is Thedas, and if they're using bears to make armor, then lets not have the bile go to waste.
> 
> Up next: Bubble bubble toil and trouble.


	4. Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo makes friends, and a couple of enemies.

Margo drops off her botanical ransom in the apothecary, then proceeds to the tavern. When she enters, everything is more or less where she left it. Varric is still holding forth, with Evie next to him. The kid is not at all embarrassed — probably because she is most definitely drunk. She is flushed with the warmth — and the booze — and sandwiched between Varric and another soldier, who looks to Margo’s critical eye to be middle-aged, handsome in a dollar store romance novel sort of way — and all kind of bad news. A “wham bam thank you ma’am” kind of fellow. Margo narrows her eyes from across the floor. Bad Boy Jack appears to be on a mission, too.

For a moment, Margo considers whether adopting the role of the mother figure to Baby Trevelyan is a particularly wise idea — it doesn’t take a genius to realize that anyone in the kid’s immediate orbit would find themselves in the limelight of popular attention. In Margo’s case, distinctly _unwanted_ attention. Then again, no one else at the table seems to be noticing that Bad News is slipping the girl drinks.

No Good Samaritan shall be left unpunished, but such is life. She marches over. There is nowhere to sit, so she leans a hip against the side of the table.

Varric looks up. “Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in.” He squints theatrically, and cocks his head to the side. “Strange, Prickly, I don’t see an ale.”

“I thought we established that you’re the one who owes me one.”

Varric clicks his tongue disapprovingly. “Still trying to trick an old dwarf.”

Before she can come up with some clever repartee, the door swings open, letting in a flurry of snowflakes, Seeker Pentaghast, and a fellow she assumes to be Commander Cullen. Both look terribly out of place. The assembled company experiences the social equivalent of a hiccup — chair legs scrape against the floorboards, backs crack as they snap to attention, armor clanks with the effort to clean or straighten it. The ambient din goes down a couple of notches. A few of the soldiers at their table scuttle off, suddenly remembering some important business that needs immediate attention. Margo uses the opportunity to snag a seat in front of Evie.

Bad Boy Jack to Evie’s right looks up, gives Margo an assessing once-over, clearly decides that she isn’t the prize of the evening, and winks.

The commanding officers make a beeline for their table, and Margo belatedly concludes that they are probably there to collect Lady Trevelyan.

Evie’s eyes widen in panic, probably because this little escapade was all well and good, until the authority figures showed up.

“Varric Tethras. I should have known we would find you here. And with the Herald, no less.” If lightning bolts could strike on demand, Varric would be electrified toast. Come to think of it, they can, which makes Margo conclude that this particular trick is not in the Seeker’s repertoire. It poses an interesting question — clearly, not everyone here is a… well. A “mage.” (The word itself still costs her a mental stumble, but Margo decides to file it away as an emic term for the time being.) Whether being a mage is a matter of innate capability or training is entirely unclear. Is one “born” with magic? Or can anyone dabble in it, and mages are only the professional designation?

And then there’s the problem of apostasy — Solas mentioned something about all mages being “apostates.” What sort of religious doctrine did they renounce, exactly — and why did they do it collectively, which is what “now” seems to imply? Does the Hellmouth have something to do with it? Did mages cause it?

Are they worshipping it? Here’s to hoping they’re not worshipping it, because the next logical step is Kool-aid cocktails.

Varric leans back, in a casual pose clearly meant to antagonize. “ _Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast, number seventy eight in line to the Nevarran throne, entered the seedy tavern_.” He switches his tone from declamative to casual. “To what do we owe this honor, Seeker?”

Cassandra – since that’s apparently the warrior woman’s name – looks like she wants to fire back something biting, but it doesn’t fly off the tongue. “Ugh,” she says instead, in such cosmic disgust and naked frustration that Margo finds herself looking quickly between the dwarf and the warrior. Varric, for his part, looks pleased as punch. Perhaps someone should do the two a favor and check if the tavern might have rooms available.

The conversational impasse that follows affords Margo the opportunity to get a better look at Commander Cullen. Once you get past the disconcerting collar, the man is classically attractive — in a mild and overly symmetrical kind of way. Add to that the slight wistfulness — though it could just be plain old discomfort — and you get a pretty pleasant first impression. Of course, appearances could be deceiving. For a second, he reminds her a bit of Jake, just a tad older and obviously more battle-worn. The thought of her brother uppercuts her into the worst pang of nostalgia she’s had since coming to this impossible world — wherever the hell it is — and, to her horror, Margo feels the telltale prickle of tears making their way up her sinuses.

She makes herself sneeze before the tears can shed. Faces turn to her, and Margo forces a casual grin that feels like a shoddy plastering job. “Catching a cold, I think. We don’t have enough mages to change the climate either, do we?”

This earns her a puzzled look from Cullen, and a steely one from Cassandra. “No. In fact, we do not have enough mages, period, and barely enough of anything else. But this does not seem to prevent certain people from wasting their time getting drunk and telling tall tales.”

“You wound me, Seeker. I never lie. The correct term is artistic embellishment,” Varric drawls. Half-hidden in the expansive display of chest hair, a gold chain thick as Margo’s thumb catches the light. Cassandra looks like she wants to tackle him.

Evie chooses this moment to hiccup, and then slams her hand against her mouth, her eyes rounding in horror. Even her eyelids are red from the sudden blush.

Bad News smiles into his fist, and clears his throat. “May I escort her Ladyship to her dwelling? It’s getting late,” he offers.

Cassandra narrows her eyes. “Messere Bordelon, is it?”

Bad News tenses, but smiles anyway — the smile is roguish. And well honed, Margo decides. “Just Jan nowadays.”

It would seem that Bad News has some clout behind his name. Margo bristles. Oh, no you don’t. “I’ll do it!” she blurts out before she can think better of it — instead of doing the prudent thing, and keeping her mouth shut, and her eyes down.

Margo finds herself in the crosshairs of Seeker Pentaghast’s heavy stare and represses the desire to fidget. The warrior nods once. “Good, do that.”

She gets up, and helps Evie extricate herself from her seat. Bad News shoots her an irritated look. Margo greets this with a raised eyebrow that she hopes conveys in no uncertain terms that she intends to take her new assignment of cockblocker-in-chief seriously.

The girl is predictably a bit wobbly. Margo grabs her elbow in a firm grip, and they begin their progression to the door.

“Don’t forget you still owe me an ale, Prickly. I’m going to start charging interest.”

“I’ll buy you a pitcher next time,” Margo shoots back.

“Promises, promises,” the dwarf chuckles.

They make it outside without further incidents. She relies on Evie to guide her back to the house she occupies, but the girl seems a little lost.

“Commander Cullen is so handsome, isn’t he?” the kid whispers suddenly. Even the whisper is just a tad slurred.

Margo blinks. Oh, unmerciful and unspecified local deity, but this is bad. “Sweetheart, how much have you had?” If they’ve made it to boy talk already, this bodes poorly for the kid’s blood alcohol content. She’s young and will probably just sleep it off, but how much experience does she have with getting sloshed? Considering the general state of affairs, this world is unlikely to fuss over legal drinking age, but Evie is so very clearly sheltered. So the most probable answer is “not much experience at all.”

“To drink? I am not sure. That nice man to my right… Jan? Jon? He just kept bringing these really yummy drinks, with funny names. Like The Antivan Lover, and The Parapet Gambler. Why would someone want to gamble a parapet, anyway?"

Margo groans. “I just bet he did.” To be filed under “improve Bad News’s stew with a secret ingredient.” Like, say, a purgative. Or an emetic. And kick Varric’s ass for not putting his foot down. “How old are you, kid? Have you had much ale or wine before?” Assessing the girl’s tolerance seems like the first step. Wasn’t there something on alcohol poisoning in Auntie’s Compendium? Or maybe it was just poisonings more generally.

“I will be twenty two next month,” Evie announces. “But Bann Trevelyan says I should avoid becoming inebriated at all costs, because of my ‘nervous constitution.’ And because ‘women who indulge in intoxicants are unseemly.’”

Margo cuts her a side glance. She’d like to have a stern talk with this Bann Trevelyan about the dangers of over-sheltering. Heavens preserve them all from demons, hellmouths, and helicopter parents. “‘Unseemly’, eh?”

Before she can begin to start punching holes through Bann Trevelyan’s opinion of women, they have another problem. Evie gets a little green around the gills, her large blue eyes filling with alarmed confusion.

“I think I feel a little funny…”

And this is how Margo finds herself holding Lady Evelyn Trevelyan’s hair as the kid pukes by the smithy. She pats her back reassuringly. “That’s good, hon. Healthy response, right there.”

The rest of the walk is predictable. After getting rid of most of the alcohol in her stomach, Evie begins to sober up — and descends into embarrassed misery. Margo finds herself alternating between whispering reassuring platitudes and gently scolding. Mercifully, Haven is small, and they make it back to Evie’s house, where Margo pours a mug of water from a clay jug, forces the kid to drink it all, and tucks her into bed.

She sits on the bed next to the girl. “I’m going to be back tomorrow morning with your medicine and Taigan’s notes, and then you and I are going to deliver them to Master Adan. And that’ll be all done with.”

“I made a fool of myself back there, didn’t I?” The kid’s lower lip trembles. “Did I say embarrassing things? I’m sure I said embarrassing things.”

“You’re fine. Sleep it off.”

“You’re not mad at me, are you?”

Margo winces. How the hell did she find herself the designated caretaker for Baby Trevelyan is beyond her, but, again, someone’s got to do the job. “No, hon. I’m not mad at you at all.”

Evie doesn’t look convinced.

“You should have seen me the first time I got drunk. In comparison, you were downright regal back there.”

This revelation earns Margo a tentative smile and a sniffle. “What did you do?”

“Got in a fight, broke a boy’s nose, fell off a roof. Puked a lot. Not necessarily in that order. Ugh. Plum liquor.” Margo shudders. “Why are they all fussing over you, anyway? I mean, I don’t mean that as an offense, I think you’re delightful, but… Everyone seems somehow vested in you beyond what I would assume is regular nobility etiquette.”

Evie pulls the blanket over herself, and puts her left hand on her lap. It’s faintly greenish, but only at a certain angle.

“It’s because of this. I can... it can... close the rifts. Holes. Whatever green things, with the demons.” The kid frowns. “Don’t you remember? You were there when that demon... and the really huge hole… And I tried, but it didn’t work, and now there are all those little rifts everywhere, and the one big one — and I don’t remember how it even happened to me either! Except the Divine, she…she… So I thought you’d understand, because you don’t remember too, and I thought that maybe… Maybe if we both don’t remember, then at least it’s not just me…”

And then the kid bursts into loud, heartbroken sobs, with big fat tears rolling down her cheeks, and Margo finds herself hugging her tight, and stroking her hair, and telling her that it’ll all be all right, somehow, and that she’ll be there for her, and that they’ll get through this shitshow together. The lies taste bitter as they roll off her tongue, because if there ever was a more unequipped person to play guardian angel to the potential savior of the world, she’d be hard-pressed to find one.

***

By the time she makes it back to the Apothecary, it’s snowing, and she’s exhausted. She climbs to the attic and collapses on her hay pallet. Despite the exhaustion, sleep eludes her. She keeps drifting off, but each time she dreams of falling down a dark pit, a malevolent presence rushing by, and a body — no longer her own — morphs into something that will never again have room for her. And then she’s a spirit adrift, a meaningless scrap with nowhere to go, untethered and hurling through the great hollow emptiness of space…

At the rooster’s first crow, which she vaguely recalls usually happens around four in the morning, Margo gives up on the sleeping enterprise, and gets up. She goes down in search of tea. Adan’s nowhere in sight, so Margo concludes that the alchemist doesn’t stay in the apothecary overnight.

She makes herself at home, sticking her nose into every jar until she finds something that smells vaguely tea-like. It looks to be flowers, so at least she’s unlikely to poison herself — safer than using some random roots, in any case. The jar is not labeled. She fishes out a single dry flower, examines it more closely, then she pops it into her mouth and chews thoughtfully. It’s a little sweet, and a little minty, with a hint of hops.

Auntie’s Compendium has pictures of live flora, but not dry materials. Still, the flower is distinct enough for her to identify it with relative ease. Amrita Vein. She squints at the drawing. It looks a bit… phallic. Morphology notwithstanding, Margo wonders at the coincidence of the plant’s name, the Sanskrit cognate of nectar, and, incidentally, immortality. It seems both vaguely blasphemous and satisfying to boil her tea with the alien plant. She settles into a chair, and leafs through Auntie’s book, sipping the concoction. It’s not half-bad. Like fireweed tea, but sweeter, with a mentholated finish. Sure enough, there is Amrita’s story in there. A hedge witch who failed to die after being abandoned by Templars in the desert. Typical.

She flips the pages to the entry for elfroot, and Auntie Ines — nothing if not thorough — included a list of formulas, in addition to the lore she collected about the plant. The hard-earned elfroot in the burlap sack seems to be of the bitter variety. There’s also something called Royal Elfroot, probably on account of its purplish leaves.

Because nothing says Royal like a purple trim.

Margo props the book open, and leaves it on the workstation for consultation.

After that, it’s smooth sailing. She goes rummaging for dawn lotus — which, in her humble opinion, looks more like a water lily — and locates a good-sized sack of it with a triumphant “Aha!”

Master Adan really needs to invest in some labels.

The next two hours are spent cleaning the elfroot, and then drying it next to the fire. She should have done it the night before, after collecting it, but she’d had a rather busy day, so Margo cuts herself some slack. The formulary does not specify whether the plant needs to be dried, but she knows from experience that it is much easier to grind up a dry plant. The work is meditative, and Margo’s thoughts drift. Flashes of childhood float up like soap bubbles. The pounding motion that crushes the leaves is familiar — though this familiarity is not of this body, but of her mind. Or spirit — whatever that might be.

It is the same motion that Baba taught her, and she has a vivid memory of the old woman — her dark hands, veined and gnarled with age, smell of mint and lemon balm. They work a pestle in circular motions. Baba smells like home — like nothing else ever has, or will. Everything about Baba is dark and high-contrast — the kerchief with the oversized flowers that holds her long black hair up, barely salted with white even at eighty. The strong jaw line; the nose, hooked and narrow like a bird’s beak; the deep-set graphite grey eyes with their bursts of crow’s feet. The net of wrinkles, like a spiderweb. _Don’t fret, my soul._ She hears the old woman’s voice, soothing, cracked, humorous. _There is nothing that your Baba doesn’t have a little herb for._ Margo is twelve or thirteen, and nursing her very first heartbreak. It feels bigger than the whole world. _You can never be lonely when you make friends with the little herbs._

Margo wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. No point in faking bravado. She lets the tears fall as they will — trying to not water the herbal mixture too much. If she’s going to have a meltdown, she might as well do it in the privacy of the apothecary. But mourning her lost world won’t bring it back, or bring her back into it, and besides, there is no more Baba to run to. That time is gone for good.

Eventually, the tears stop, and the heartbreak eases a fraction.

The rest of the work is in careful measuring and weighing. She finds a nice little scale, with its collection of metal weights tucked neatly into matching sockets in a velvet case.

By the time she goes to fetch more snow for melting, the sky is taking on the piercing lapis hue of pre-dawn. Margo packs some clean snow into a ball and carries it back, then she stuffs it into the large cast iron pot over the fire and waits for it to boil.

When the sky turns a bright custard yellow, Master Adan rolls into the shop. Margo has a nice little collection of healing potions by then, all lined up and labeled — though writing with a bird feather didn’t do her handwriting any favors. The liquid tastes abrasively bitter, but it’s a good bitter — the kind of bitter that tells you “yes, I am very good for you, have some more.” Margo downed half a vile — because what good scientist doesn’t experiment on herself — and she feels good. Really good, in fact. Her ribs no longer ache, and she’s not at all exhausted, despite the lack of sleep.

Adan eyes the vials. “What’s this, now?”

Margo hands him one of the unstoppered ones. “Would you check? I think I did it right, but want your expert opinion.”

The alchemist sniffs at the vial suspiciously, then he takes a small sip, rolling the liquid on his tongue. “Hmm. It’s… a little stronger than I make them. But…” He takes another sip. She notices that the dark circles under his eyes pale a bit. Someone was up too late, Margo thinks to herself. Probably drinking hard, too.

“Not bad for a fledgling. We’ll make an alchemist of you yet.”

Margo beams at the praise.

They spend most of the early morning working through her elfroot supply, but she saves some for a restoration potion, and then some more for the formula Solas gave her. She shows the elf’s scribbled recipe to Master Adan. Bearded and Grumpy just shrugs with a noncommittal grumble. “No idea. Feel free to try, just don’t blow up the place.”

Margo quizzes the alchemist about Master Taigan. It turns out that Adan began apprenticing with him when he was eleven, before securing admission into something called the College of Herbalists. He worked his way up from collection to processing to making formulas. He tells her silly stories about his early experiments with explosives, each one ending with a variant of “And then Master Taigan gave me a sound thrashing.”

From his stories, she gleans the names and geography of her new world. “Thedas” seems like the name of the continent — or something like it. It is subdivided into what Margo decides must be nation states. The speciation is confusing, but also bizarrely familiar. There are linguistic differences, presumably, but she can’t quite figure out if it’s languages or dialects. She’s still a bit shaky on the Qunari, but they apparently have something called “gaatlok” — for which Master Adan has a very serious hard-on. It sounds a whole lot like gunpowder.

By mid-morning they’re done processing the elfroot, and Adan hands her a handful of coppers in a small woven purse. Margo tucks her first earnings Thedas-side into her pocket. It seems like the perfect opportunity to go check on Evie, bring her the medicine, and haul the kid over to the apothecary to deliver Master Taigan’s notes. And then maybe track Varric down for lunch and buy him his damn beer, now that she actually can.

Evie’s house stands empty safe for an overworked-looking elf on cleaning duty. Margo wanders around the village — a bit aimlessly — until her attention is drawn by the clanking of steel. A sparring ground flanked by a row of tents hosts a group of soldiers training in pairs or alone.

She spots Cassandra whacking at a wooden dummy like it stole her dinner. One part of the rink has attracted a group of gawkers, but the small crowd isn’t interested in the spectacle of the Seeker smiting the humanoid log. Instead, they are watching Evie and a female knight — or what Margo assumes to be a knight based on the heavy plate armor — circle each other. She picks up speed, propelled forward by a sudden bout of nervousness. Evie, armed with a sword and a shield she seems barely able to lift — let alone wield — is looking utterly miserable.

Not that Margo knows a thing about fighting — beyond minimal self-defense, and even that, dubious — but it doesn’t take a grandmaster in martial arts to realize that things aren’t going well. And the crowd, sorry bastards that they are, smell the blood and are circling.

It’s over in thirty seconds. The lady knight charges and disarms Evie in two blows. And then, without warning, slips on a patch of ice beneath the snow and lands on her ass with a metal clatter that puts Margo in mind of a collapsing tower of pots and pans. Evie jumps back, and cowers behind her shield, holding it up with both hands. There are jeers from the onlookers, and Margo “accidentally” bumps into a burly fellow whose hoots are particularly loud. He gives her an irritated look, which Margo counters with an innocent smile.

“Enough!” Commander Cullen, complete with the spectacular fur collar, emerges from between the tents at the same time as Seeker Pentaghast abandons her project of abusing the dummy. The both of them converge on the ring of spectators with matching expressions of focused disapproval.

The female knight rises to her feet, her face red with embarrassment. “With all due respect, Commander, she is not ready for the field.” She stands at attention, but the immobility looks forced.

“Your opinion is duly noted, Ser Lysette.” There is a note of warning in the military man’s tone.

The flush on Lysette’s cheeks spreads to the rest of her face. “She won’t last a day. I won’t use my men as fodder just to compensate for her… lack of training. We need more time, Knight-Captain. Ser.”

“Not in front of the soldiers,” Cullen grinds out, gives Evie an awkward nod, and leads his subordinate away by the elbow. Cassandra intercepts them, and they go off to discuss matters of state.

Margo collects the crestfallen Evie from the sparring rink, and takes the giant shield from her. “Don’t let them see you cry,” she whispers. Evie furtively rubs her eyes with her sleeve, but at least she’s not bawling. Kid one, crowd zero.

As they begin to walk back towards the apothecary, Margo spots a familiar — and unwelcome — red-headed figure looming at the edge of the field like an oversized malevolent crow. The spymaster pins her with a calculating kind of stare — the kind that’s trying to decide if it wants to peck out your spleen or your liver first — and beckons with a hand. “A word?”

This cannot possibly lead anywhere good. Margo nods, acknowledging the summons, extracts the bundle of notes from her pack, and hands them to Evie.

“Could you do me a favor and take these to Master Adan? He’ll have some tonics for you to take home, too.”

“You’re not coming?” the kid asks, disappointment painted plainly on her face.

“Sure I am. I’ll be right up.” Either that, or she’ll be right down, straight to Comrade Nightingale’s dungeons.

The spymaster turns around and begins to walk up the hill, forcing Margo to catch up to her. “Walk with me, agent,” the redhead says in a suspiciously pleasant tone once Margo is level with her.

She doesn’t see many plausible alternatives to this proposition, so Margo complies. They make their way towards the temple.

“I could not help but notice that you have taken an interest in Lady Trevelyan. How very… thoughtful of you. How is your memory?”

“I’m working on it,” Margo offers cautiously.

“I am told you are making yourself very useful to Master Adan. It must be fascinating, working with all these potent substances.”

“Whatever helps me get my memories back faster.”

“I hear that this morning’s batch of healing potions is working well. Your doing?”

Margo nods, but remains silent, lest there are more questions that start with a variation of "I am told" or "I hear."

“A useful skill, herbalism. Wherever did you pick it up. I do not recall it being in Charter’s recruiting dossier on you.”

So, there is a dossier on her? She wonders where it might be kept. Probably in a hell realm, protected by Cerberus and a thousand wrathful deities, if the Spymaster has her way. They stop some distance from the temple, but with a good view of its façade. In the morning light, the building is majestic. Above the roof, red banners flap in the morning breeze, stark smears of crimson against the white sky.

“Beautiful, is it not? There is the chantry, of course, but the site itself is much older. Haven has… a long history.”

At this point Margo’s pretty sure that the abrupt changes of subject — and tone — are a destabilizing tactic. Comrade Nightingale would certainly be pleased to know that it’s working as intended.

“You know, they say our young Lady Trevelyan is the Herald of Andraste herself. Sent to us in our time of need to rectify the wrongs of the world. Are you devout, agent?”

Margo considers how to answer. She has always been on the agnostic side of any kind of religious belief, with the general attitude that unless it comes over and whacks her on the head, then its existence remains dubious until proven otherwise. And then it came, and it whacked. Right into a world with magic, demons, and quite possibly other mythological shenanigans. Elves. Dwarves. Hellmouths. She wonders if there are dragons. And from dragons… well, it’s not a far step to total suspended disbelief. But Comrade Nightingale probably doesn’t want to hear her ecclesiastical musings. “I am… undecided,” Margo volunteers.

“Indeed you are!” the spymaster exclaims, with creepy cheer. “And how could you not be, since you have lost your memory.”

Of, fuck this shit very much, she can’t walk on eggshells forever. She’ll probably get killed either way, unless the spymaster managers to needle her to death before that. Margo takes a steadying breath. “Look, I know that you have no reason to trust me, but believe at least this. I am doing everything I can to find the information you need.”

Comrade Nightingale surveys her with an inscrutable look. “Perhaps. And in fact, I am inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt. Let us assume, for a moment, that you have, indeed, lost your memory. And let us also assume for a moment that your friendship with Lady Trevelyan is born of genuine sentiment. At the very least, traitor or not, you must understand her importance.”

Margo waits for the other shoe to drop.

“What do you make of her performance on the training grounds this morning?”

Ah. That must be the other shoe. Although she isn’t sure what the local Gestapo’s very own Herr – well, Ok, Frau - Göring is angling for. Either way, there is no point in denying the obvious — and aggravate the spymaster.

“I think that Lady Trevelyan is not very skilled at combat. But she is young, she will learn.”

“That, agent, is precisely the issue. She is not young for the skills she clearly does not possess. She should be accomplished with her chosen weapon by now, as all heirs to noble families are. And it remains a question why she is not. In fact, we know very little about her upbringing — her family is remarkably secretive on this subject — and I, for one, do not like secrets.” The spymaster smiles charmingly. “But more to the matter at hand, we do not have the luxury of time for her to train before we must make use of her. The mages and Templars are annihilating each other, there are Qunari on the coast, Orlais and Ferelden are jostling for power. And the place of the Divine stands vacant. I trust I do not have to mention the obvious problem.”

The woman gestures towards the sky behind them.

Margo tries to decide what is causing the spymaster’s sudden loquaciousness. If Comrade Nightingale believes that this little exposé on Thedas geopolitics is going to lower her defenses, Margo’s got a bridge to sell her.

“So you see our predicament. The Inquisition cannot shelter the Herald forever, and she needs to be in the field — minimally, closing rifts. We must ensure that people’s faith in her status as the Herald of Andraste is buttressed in order to rally the population behind us. We are hemorrhaging troops, and we simply lack the manpower to build a self-sufficient operative unit while the Herald remains a liability. Which brings me to you, agent. And the problem of your lost patrol.”

Margo misses half of this, because she is still stuck at “The Inquisition.” Inquisitions, in her experience, are bad news. Aside from the fact that no one ever expects them, they have a tendency to get very zealous about the whole torture and burn approach to ideological dissenters.

Margo updates her label for the spymaster to Torquemada.

“I have good reason to think that there is an advantage to be gained on the Sword Coast, someone who might be useful for extending Lady Trevelyan’s life expectancy — despite her lack of military competence — and who might be persuaded to join our cause. If your memory loss is a farce, and you are an agent of the Qun — as I suspect — then it is possible that you will see this as playing into the hands of your masters, and will have no problem with my proposition. If it is not — whether because your memory troubles are the product of an accident or induced — then you will agree for sentimental reasons, to protect our young friend.”

The spymaster turns away from the chantry to survey the valley. Thin plumes of smoke are rising above the houses. From here, Margo can hear the metal clanking drifting up from the sparring grounds.

“Allow me to put it very simply. Despite Master Adan’s — and now your — alchemical efforts, we are desperate for healers. The apostate is helpful, but one mage gets us only so far. We must recruit aggressively, and there is a Chantry Mother and healer from the Hinterlands we need to bring into the fold. I doubt she will agree to take sides, but she might be swayed by the idea that Andraste herself has sent the embodiment of her benevolence. I can spare Cassandra and the mage for a week — and the dwarf, I assume, will tag along — but this will mean more losses among our wounded. It will also mean that we’ll incur more casualties from this mission, and by that point we should expect to be stretched very thin indeed. After that, we need to expand our ranks, and fast. Hence, I need your memories now. Not it three days. This is the only logistically sound approach. I am sorry.”

Oh, that’s the shoe. Well, fuck. “Can you give me until tomorrow morning?”

The Spymaster cuts her a dry glance. "So you might try to run? Do not waste your effort and my resources.”

Margo swallows. Her stomach feels like it’s trying to flee through her heels, but she forces her mouth to work through the icy terror. “No. I won’t run. If I have nothing for you by tomorrow morning, I will come willingly, and you can do as you please. But let me at least try to do this on my own terms.”

Torquemada crosses her arms. “I do not see how this delay would benefit the Inquisition.”

Margo pauses, formulating the sentence like her life depends on it. Which, of course, it does. “Think of it this way. If I am, in fact, a loyal agent to your cause and my story checks out, then you gain your information and retain an agent. If not, then you might gain your information — or might not — and you definitely lose an agent. You yourself are saying that you are already short on people.”

At this, the spymaster’s expression morphs into a cold smile, and for a second she reminds Margo of a grinning skull.

“You make a valid argument. These are acceptable terms. Tomorrow at first light, then.”

With this, Torquemada walks away, the snow creaking ominously under her boots. And Margo realizes belatedly that the spymaster maneuvered her to exactly where she wanted her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by Ponty Python's Flying Circus, because, as was already said, no one ever expects the Inquisition.
> 
> Next up: Alchemy, rituals, and as can be expected with mixing these things together, unintended consequences...
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, subscribing, kudos and comments. They warm my heart <3


	5. In Memoriam (*)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo meditates on the merits of hot air balloons, mixes some potions, and in which a ritual goes poorly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: a bit NSFW, read accordingly.

Margo walks back to the apothecary in a daze. The worst part of it all is that Torquemada, for all her callous attitude to the staff, is not wrong. The reasoning behind it is cynical — but like most cynical reasoning, it builds on a foundation of implacable practicality. This world Margo landed into is in deep crisis. You have the – ecological? cosmic? – clusterfuck that is the Hellmouth, and then you have the various powers, great and small, trying to exploit said clusterfuck to further some parochial and short sighted interest. Instead of all working together to try and not get annihilated by the fauna that gets vomited out of yonder portal, they’re treating it as a “business opportunity” — or a convenient distraction to get a one-up on someone else. Armored knights, demons, potential dragons, and pointy-eared mages aside, some things insist on being axiomatic, it would seem. You’d think landing in an entirely different dimension with new and interesting forms of sentient life could at least lend some alternative cultural and historical patterns, but no. Different world, same old shit. Margo scowls. How very _human_.

She reroutes her thoughts towards the problem at hand. If this Inquisition — terrible choice of name notwithstanding — is the only organization that has a remote shot at ameliorating some of the apocalyptic vibe, then Torquemada’s actions are understandable. This is all bigger than any one individual’s life — and from that angle, she supposes that everyone is disposable.

Everyone but Evie, as long as the green thing on her hand is capable of affecting these “rifts.” It does beg the question of where the holes in the fabric of reality lead to in the first place. Unpleasant things called “demons” allegedly fall out — do other things also fall _in_? Is this a one-way street? What if someone took a hot air balloon — wouldn’t be too hard to make if magic includes the possibility of heating air on demand — and sent it up through the Great Green Gaping Hole?

She gives her mind a firm kick to reroute it back to the more immediate problems. This isn’t the time to play Bartalameu de Gusmão — besides, if her own world’s historical record is any indication, Inquisitions do not like hot air balloons one little bit — or any other unidentified flying object.

And when it’s all said and done, there’s really not much room for hand-wringing. Margo has a solid enough sense of historicity to accept the whole “one small cog in the machine” theory of individual relevance. But then again, squeaky wheel gets the grease, so no sense in rolling over either.

At the apothecary’s entrance, she is greeted by a visibly happier Evie, who rattles off a string of exclamations about Master Adan, notes, and elfroot potions. Before she can process all that, the kid throws her arms around Margo’s neck and gives her a loud peck on the cheek. And then the girl blushes bright red, and proceeds to apologize profusely.

“I mean… I don’t mean… It’s just that you gave me the notes to give Master Adan, and you didn’t have to, and then you didn’t let me stay all alone after I couldn’t fight, and then you helped me home even though I was horribly drunk and embarrassing. Thank you for being such an amazing friend!”

Margo blinks once, and then grins. “You’re welcome, kid. Next time you’re drinking with Varric, watch out for that Jan guy. Or anyone else who seems to be bringing you lots of sweet drinks. And if you have to drink, stick to ale.”

“Yup! I got it. Stick to ale, don’t accept pretty drinks from strange men — or strange drinks from pretty men? Especially if they have fancy names. The drinks, I mean. Not the men.”

“Right on. And even if the men have fancy names, that’s not a good reason to accept drinks either.”

Evie nods solemnly, digesting this nugget of timeless wisdom.

Adan armed the kid with a belt full of healing potions to dispense to the various makeshift infirmaries, and Evie departs on her delivery route with a renewed sense of purpose and a spring in her step.

Margo sighs. Good thing the biochemistry hasn’t gotten sufficiently elaborate for Rufinol, but the locals are making do with what they have on hand. She makes a mental note to read Auntie’s section on antidotes.

If she is alive by tomorrow afternoon, that’ll be her new pet project.

Inside the apothecary, Master Adan, pleased with the day’s development so far, promises Margo that he’s going to teach her more complex preparations in a few days. “You’ll be mixing Lyrium potions in no time, you mark my word.” And whatever Lyrium is, Margo is intrigued enough by this prospect that the idea of dying in the next day-night cycle (however long they are here) really does not appeal.

She buckles down for the afternoon, and begins to try her hand at the restoration draughts. It’s slow, finicky, and for someone who isn’t her, probably boring work, but she finds herself oddly content. The elfroot requires pretty extreme reduction until it turns into viscous brown tar. Adan directs her to spread the paste on a polished wooden tray. They dry it, grind it, and leave it to extract further into an ethanol tincture heated over a water bath. The other ingredients are added later. It’s not an uncommon technique, and she has seen the practice documented in several medical traditions back home, but the elfroot she gathered — whether because such is this particular species, or because of its unlikely growing conditions — isn’t resinous enough.

She makes do with what she has, and on the third try, she has a restoration potion that looks the right color. The dark tawny liquid catches the light as she swirls it in a glass beacon. She hands it to Adan for testing.

He takes a cautious sip. “Hmm. Close. But not quite right either. Did you add the prophet’s laurel?”

“I did. What’s missing?”

He tastes the potion again. “Not astringent enough. It should have a binding finish, like… Hmmm. Ghoul’s beard after first frosts.”

She doesn’t know what a ghouls’ beard is, let alone what it might taste after frostbite, but she understands astringency. “Got it, like an unripe banana.”

Adan narrows his eyes. “Hmm. Been meaning to ask. Where are you from, lass? Bit of an accent. Up north? Seheron?”

Shit. Either they have actual bananas and Adan never had a green one, or “bananas” don’t mean what she thinks they mean. Either that, or elves don’t live where bananas do. Margo shrugs. Playing the airy blonde isn’t going to work with her new physique — despite the correct hair color. Her stolen body’s features are a little too much on the sharp and unaccommodating side of the equation. And double shit. She can’t actually _hear_ any accent in her speech, but clearly Adan can. “I’ve traveled. Can you check over my formula? And technique?”

Adan grumbles, but obliges. He looks over her formulary as she prepares the base again. The alchemist frowns, flipping the pages back and forth. “Where are your annotations?” he asks.

Margo looks at him in puzzlement. “Should there be specific annotations?”

He gives her a look like she just fell out of the hellmouth while playing the accordion. Which, in a way, more or less describes the absurdity of the whole thing. “Who did you train with?”

All things being equal, better to tell the truth — or minimize the lies. “My grandmother dabbled,” she offers neutrally. “But I’m also largely self-taught.”

“Hedge witches…” Adan grumbles. “No wonder you’re struggling. You have natural talent, and I can see you have a good memory. And somehow, you have the technical training down better than any novice I’ve seen. But without a mentor’s explanations, you might as well be brewing tisanes.”

Margo vaguely realizes that she should be feeling chastised by all this, but instead she is practically bouncing up and down with excitement. It’s a lineage system! With a robust oral tradition! This is why the formularies are so bare bones. And in fact, it is probably why Auntie Ines is overrepresented – she’s guessing she was an iconoclast, trying to systematize the whole knowledge into a single corpus of work. But she still must have kept local variations out of the compendium, maybe because she was trying to distill a kind of average formula out of many local variants. Or maybe simply out of respect for guild secrets. Yes. Then the compendium would be useful for teaching, but one would still need a mentor to offer commentaries and explanations. To hone the formulas. Knowledge systematized, oral tradition preserved – it’s a win-win. Atta Auntie.

She notices Adan is staring at her in befuddlement. “You know you’re a strange lass, right?”

“I’ve been called worse things. So. What am I missing?”

It turns out that the mixture requires grated deep mushroom (also known as totally different species of fungus that all happen to grow underground, but otherwise don’t have much in common), added to the concoction right before it boils. Soon enough, Margo has a sample that passes Adan’s approval, and she is ready to tackle Solas’s formula.

Except, of course, by this point she has barely any elfroot left, and it’s getting too late to go gather more and still have time to brew. The only option left is to follow the formula exactly as it is noted, and hope for the best.

In an hour, she is done. Margo stretches her back, the muscles stiff from leaning over the workstation for too long. She lets the potion cool a little bit before taking a small sip of it to check the taste. The spice is there — a mild burn, mostly felt in the throat rather than on the tongue. But the sweetness is faint. Nowhere near cloying.

Dumping a bunch of molasses in there is unlikely to solve the pharmacological divergence, so Margo corks the bottle, finds a cloth to wrap around it so that the draught doesn’t cool too fast in the cold, and she carefully deposits it into her bag.

When she leaves the apothecary, the sky is dark and overcast. She considers swinging by the tavern, but decides against it, since mixing alcohol with pharmaceuticals is a recipe for drug-interaction disaster. She can’t quite recall the last time she ate, but considering how little draught she ended up producing, drinking it on an empty stomach might be the wiser course of action anyway.

Perhaps she should go check on Evie, and make sure she didn’t get into any new and interesting trouble. Or she could try to see if Master Harritt might make her a little portable rake for digging plants out of the permafrost. Or she could go watch Seeker Pentaghast take out her aggression on a log in a hat.

She’s stalling. Because now that the jig is up, she is terrified out of her wits. For all her tough talk about the innocence of rituals, Margo has few doubts that in a world where magic is so immediate, there is nothing benign about ritualistic behavior.

She comes to a halt in the middle of the courtyard, suddenly unsure. This is a terrible idea. What was she thinking? She doesn’t know this Solas bloke — sure, he helped her in the past, but it doesn’t solve the mystery of _why_ he did it. Varric said as much — the elf isn’t known to fuss over the common soldiers, so why did he bother with her?

And then it hits her. Of course. Torquemada. It’s the only logical explanation. This body’s previous occupant had been sent on a mission to the Sword Coast (whatever that is, it doesn’t sound inviting) — and then came back — minus a patrol — and, instead of reporting to the spymaster right away, went off and died on some other mission. Didn’t Solas say something to the effect of being pleasantly surprised at her unexpected recovery? And she did wake up in a separate log cabin, instead of an infirmary with all the other wounded, which suggests that they had kept her isolated for whatever reason.

Margo forces herself to take a step, then another. She was allowed to wander around with no oversight. Which means that Solas must have made her “amnesia” into a social fact, which is probably why she isn’t being introduced to interesting Inquisitorial devices of the sharp and pointy variety. At least, not yet.

Which, in turn, brings her right back to the original question. Why did he help?

All right. Only one way to solve that mystery. Salt circles. Candles. Incense. Silly wiccans. Just like home. What could possibly go wrong? She can do this. Not that there is much of an alternative.

Margo knocks on Solas’s door, and then, for a second or two, she hopes he won’t answer. At least, she assumes it’s his door. She has seen him standing outside this house, down the street from her apothecary — and why would he be loitering about if this weren’t where he was staying?

The door swings open, and, indeed, it’s the elf himself.

For a split second, before he puts on his neutral face, surprise registers on his features. “Ah. You have come. Please.” He steps aside, gesturing for her to enter.

Margo knocks the snow off her boots at the threshold, trying to avoid dragging the mush into his house. She looks around. The space is no frills, going on ascetic. The only piece of decoration is a truly heinous portrait on one of the walls. By the looks of the depicted gentleman, perhaps a previous Inquisitor? The furniture is simple. A bed, a dresser, a few chairs. Books and notes are scattered about.

“You travel light, don’t you?” Margo jokes, trying to decide where she should sit. Or stand. Or… whatever. In the absence of a conveniently drawn goat-headed pentagram with a helpful “ _insert sacrificial maiden here, facing this way,_ ” she feels a little lost. Not that she’s a maiden. Or that this is meant to be a sacrifice. Right?

“Please, sit.” Solas paces towards one of the chairs, then he seems to change his mind, and pulls up the other. He hesitates, somehow torn between chair one and chair two. If there are subtle differences between the two seating options, Margo hasn’t noticed them.

Is he nervous? She is not sure if that should make her feel better, or worse.

Well, no time like the present. “How does it work?”

The elf clears his throat. “It is quite simple — at least, in theory.” The smile is probably meant to be reassuring, but it seems a little forced. “When a spirit crosses into the physical world, it risks corruption. On occasion, it is possible to draw upon the Fade to help it recollect its nature before it passes into nonexistence.” He clasps his hands behind his back, and starts pacing. “Spirits reflect the memories emplaced in their environment. And thus, before a spirit ceases to exist, it is possible to feed magic into the patterns that gave it form to offer it one final apprehension of itself.”

Margo nods slowly. Not that she’s exactly following all this — the biggest stumbling block being “Fade,” and spirits as some kind of autonomous entity. Then again, if there are demons, then it seems logical to assume that there might be spirits as well. “And how would this apply to working with a body?”

Solas comes to a stop. “We presume the same thing. The body retains some memories that are, for whatever reason, inaccessible to your spirit. The spell should activate and maintain the body’s memory for long enough to recover the necessary information.”

Margo examines the elf. He looks … not excited, exactly, but definitely eager — like he’s itching to try this, and verify if it works quite as neatly in practice as it does in theory. She suppresses a nascent frown. So that’s the motivation. Scientific curiosity combined with a conveniently available experimental organism. If so, then he’s not taking a big variable into consideration, and it seems unethical — not to mention really fucking stupid — not to warn him.

“Solas? There is something about me that you should probably know.”

“Oh?” He leans against one of the bookshelves, in a relaxed pose that also manages to be a little cheeky. “You mean something beyond what I have already seen?”

Is the egghead flirting with her? “Cute. And yes.” He can flirt all he wants now, it’s not going to be all daisies and sunshine when he realizes that she’s a body snatcher.

“Very well. So it is not about your body. Or at least not about its physical aesthetics, since I am already somewhat familiar with that aspect. Do you wish to tell me now, or shall I see for myself?”

Margo chuckles grimly. Yes, definitely flirting. But also, probably nervous. Maybe this is how he handles that. Except, of course, the blasted warm and fuzzies make a roaring comeback. She reminds herself that it isn’t even _her_ body.

Which brings her to his original question. “Both. I am going to offer you the best explanation I can, and then I want you to check for yourself, because in my experience empirical understanding is worth a thousand words. And the reason I want you to do that is because I think it will have to change the way you approach your spell.”

Solas nods, stops propping up the bookcase, and comes to sit on the chair in front of her, one leg over the other, chin on his fist. Margo decides he just needs a pair of black rim glasses to complete the ensemble. He’s already rocking the turtleneck. Your iconic Leftist intellectual. Vive la Révolution. Her eyes are drawn to an odd pendant hanging from a set of leather cords around his neck. It looks like some kind of... mandible? A fox, maybe — judging by the size. The bone is almost black, which strikes Margo as odd — the surface is too evenly dark to look natural, unless creatures in this realm use something other than calcium for bone-building.

Solas catches her gaze on the pendant, but offers no explanations, and Margo decides that they’re probably not well-acquainted enough for her to quiz him about his choices of jewelry. Besides, there are more pressing issues. What does she say? Easy, right? She had a near death experience, and got translocated into a different body. Except that “translocated” is a massive euphemism. I come in peace, please don’t take me to your leader. “I’m not exactly who I seem to be,” she finally manages, and yes, it sounds pretty damn weak.

“Ah.” He doesn’t seem surprised. Or not as surprised as he should be. “You are one of Leliana’s agents. I suspect this comes as a hazard of your profession.”

She should probably elaborate. Except, Margo chickens out. “Just look for yourself.”

The elf hesitates, his gaze focused on some invisible internal horizon. Finally, he seems to make a decision. “Then we will proceed as intended. As with sleep, your body will go into a type of paralysis. I suggest you lie down.” He gestures to the bed. “And before we begin, you must drink the draught.”

Beats the goat-headed pentagram. Margo takes off her jacket, and hangs it on the back of her chair. She fishes through her knapsack for the vial. The cork is wedged too tightly, sucked in by the change in temperature, and it takes her a few tries to unstopper the bottle.

“Well. To the benefit of all beings.” The Buddhist blessing seems appropriate — and conveniently encompassing.

She downs the potion in a few quick gulps. It goes down smoothly, and sure enough, there is a new sweetness mixed in with the spice — a finish that wasn’t there before. Sweet, but not cloying. She should have waited for the stuff to extract for longer.

Margo lies down on the bed, which might as well be a plank for all the cushioning it lends. How does he sleep on that thing? Solas pulls up his chair and leans over her, his hands passing over her body without touching it. And at this point, she has such a vivid recollection of the one time she went for an energy healing sessions — gauded into it by her brother, at the time in one of his “spiritual” phases — that she has to suppress a grin.

She shoots a quick glance at the elf. He looks so earnestly focused, that Margo can’t help the quip. “This is where you tell me that my chakras have obstructions, isn’t it?”

A look of puzzlement comes over his features. “I beg your pardon?”

At first, it’s just a quiet sort of harrumph. But because Solas is now sporting the unmistakable look of peeved annoyance, Margo burst into giggles. The more she tries to suppress them, the more insistent the giggles become, and soon enough she’s curled up in a fetal position, tears streaming down her cheeks as she tries to stuff the hysterical laughter back down.

“You are not taking this seriously enough.” And because she expects more peevish disapproval, Margo is jolted out of her hysterical sniggering by the soft sadness in his voice.

She meets the elf’s eyes, and thinks to herself that it would be easy — and a terrible idea — to get lost in their shifting colors. “I’m sorry. Coping strategy.”

He nods. And then there’s a distinct change in the texture of his non-touch, and Margo feels a jolt, hot and cold at once, that courses from his hands and into her body. She forces herself to keep still, no longer in the mood for hilarity.

Solas draws back with a hiss.

Margo lifts up on one elbow to get a better look at his expression, and what she sees there unnerves her. There’s… she’s not sure what it is. Surprise. Fear, maybe. And a heartbroken kind of recognition that she can’t even begin to identify.

“What are you?”

Margo reaches over, and grabs his hand, because somehow this seems like the most logical thing to do at the moment. His skin is cool, his fingers long and delicate like a musician’s. He tenses at the touch, so she quickly retracts her palm. “I’m... from elsewhere.”

He bolts to his feet, takes a few steps, and then he turns around. “Yes, I can see that your essence is not of this body. But you are not…” He trails off.

And that, of course, is the heart of it. “I think you might be able to get the whole story. If you’re willing to keep going.”

He hesitates for a few moments, but, at length, he paces back to his chair and lowers himself into it. Margo reclines back on the bed. Her earlier hilarity has dissipated, leaving in its wake a sense of unfocused dread. She is not sure which is more terrifying — that the elf would decide to proceed, or that he might storm out and report her to Torquemada. Or fry her with a lightning bolt, and be done with it.

One way or another, the ball is in his court. That her life probably depends on it doesn’t mean she can force him. Margo sneaks a glance. Solas is contemplating her with such intense puzzlement it borders on painful, but he quickly resets the expression back to neutral when he catches her gaze. He turns away, takes off the odd mandible ornament, and sets it down on the table. When he turns to her again, his face is unreadable, but the words, when they come, sound oddly resigned. “Very well. Let us begin.”

Margo nods once.

His hands are back, hovering over her. The hot-cold sensation that emanates from them is much stronger this time, on the edge of uncomfortable. Then Solas frowns, shakes his head, and lowers his hands down, almost framing her face. The unsettling temperature disturbance subsides. Margo feels his fingertips glide over her forehead. She tenses, caught in the contradiction of fight or flight. His touch is gentle but clinical, so she forces her body to settle down.

Still, when he speaks, Margo practically jumps out of her skin. “This body’s memory is not your own. If I allow it to manifest, it is possible that your spirit will be forced to... accommodate it. The draught should allow you to be a spectator, keeping you — and I — at a safe distance. Are you certain that this is what you wish?”

Margo nods, because she doesn’t have the voice to say the obvious. She’s come this far. There’s no turning back now — and, besides, there is no time to find a safer alternative.

Another jolt of magic, a brief sense of vertigo, and then she sees a little girl — a human one, with dark hair and olive skin, just like her Baba’s — skipping rope in a weedy yard. Chickens run underfoot.

She watches the girl from about ten feet away. There is a presence next to her. She doesn’t need to look to know it’s Solas, Virgil to her Dante.

“You?” The question comes from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Before Margo can figure out how to articulate an answer, the image hitches and morphs, like a visual glitch or a dream mutating into another. An elven girl with flaxen hair plays an unfamiliar game on the cobblestones of a medieval city. The girl is younger — or perhaps just small. Margo catches a whiff of frying oils, raw sewage, and recent rain.

The dark-haired girl skipping rope is gone, the memory scattered.

What comes next rushes along in a flurry of images. The elven girl is outside, wandering the woods. It’s dark, and she is afraid, but she is more terrified by what she has left behind — there, in the tenseness of her shoulders and the bruises on her face — than by what lies ahead. A thin, shadowed figure with a bow strapped to her back comes to meet her underneath the tree cover. The woman’s face floats into view — her features are utterly alien, but not so dissimilar from those of the little blond girl. The woman’s skin is covered in elaborate tattoos in the shape of a stylized tree.

The memory fades. On the other side of the thin membrane between wakefulness and dreaming, Margo can feel Solas’s hands trailing down from her head to her neck, and then resting on her shoulders.

“There is little here,” she thinks she hears him say, but before she can respond, another flood of images takes over. She is still apart from them, a voyeur peeking in. Solas’s presence doubles — there, in a faraway room next to an unfamiliar bed, and here, in the maze of memories not of her making.

She — and this time, it is Margo once again, at maybe thirteen or fourteen — is painting the ornate window trim of a wooden house, alongside another figure, tall and gaunt like a scarecrow. The presence isn’t menacing — quite the opposite. She could recognize its ghost anywhere. Baba. Margo’s muscles ache with the strain of repeated motion, but the trim is turning azure, and baba chuckles quietly next to her. “ _Szép munka_ , my heart, now these silly neighbors can talk. A real gingerbread house for the village witch, hmm?”

And then Baba is gone, and so is the memory, eaten by the magic spell, and traded for another’s past. An elven girl — maybe thirteen or fourteen — is learning dagger work. She is fast — strike, parry, strike, twirl. She dances with another elven man — her trainer, perhaps — and there, in the background, an old elven woman with olive skin, dark hair that glints with silver threads, and slate grey eyes nods approvingly. “ _On_ , vhenan, you will be a fine warrior in your time.”

As they move over her body, Solas’s hands bring more memories of her host — and reduce her own to nothing but ash on the wind — and Margo wants to cry at their loss, but it seems like it is the only possible price to pay for the knowledge of this other being, gone now, safe for its fragments. She feels the elf’s hands glide over her ribs, and she learns of the elven girl’s rejection of the Vallaslin — a badge of honor to wear with pride, offered and refused. She walks away, her heart pounding with anger and heartbreak, into the service of a woman called Charter. There is a reason behind it, but from her voyeuristic vantage point one step outside of the memory, Margo can see that the reason is not the cause. The explanation is the lie the girl tells herself — about a boy who is meant for the fierce sister, but prefers the gentler one. The boy’s choice wounds, but also brings relief — the elven girl doesn’t quite fit into the order of things, and now she no longer needs to.

Margo loses her memory of her first kiss to it. Ivan, at fifteen, climbing over the fence to pilfer tea roses from the neighbor’s yard for her. There, and then gone.

She comes out of the magic-induced reverie with a start, and finds the elf staring at her.

Margo sits up. The hut is dark, safe for one candle burning at her bedside. She can’t recall Solas lighting it.

“This…” He shakes his head, an expression that can only be qualified as tortured flashing across his face. “Do not ask this of me.”

She stares at him in puzzlement. Is the process taking too much of his magic? He looks slumped over — and a little green — and Margo wonders whether they should take a break, except that nothing so far has produced anything useful. And if they stop now, it means the memories of herself she is losing would have been for nothing.

“Why?” That seems like a reasonable question.

“Because this process is altering your very essence.” Solas gestures abruptly, gets up, and starts pacing again. It seems that his way of dealing with emotional strain is extraneous movement. It is a different kind of anger than she’s seen on him before. Not the quickly smothered flare of frustration, this is something deeper and more primordial to who he is. “I should never have offered this.”

So it’s not a technical difficulty, but an ethical quandary, then. Margo tries to decide how to respond. From what she can gather, the elf doesn’t need intellectual coddling. She thinks he can take an honest answer. And if not, then better find out earlier rather than later. She sits up on the bed and shrugs. “Everything has a price. I’m choosing to pay it willingly.”

Solas stops pacing. “You cannot know what you are asking.”

Margo eyes him, smothering a sudden jolt of irritation. “I’d very much prefer it if you didn’t presume that I am incapable of deciding how to balance the scales.”

That gets at him. He stalks over and plants himself over her, looming, the anger still boiling hot, right beneath the still surface. “Very well, then. What shall we do next? Shall we start back up with your feet?”

Margo nods before reclining back. “Might as well.”

“I must work fast. The potion is waning. Once it is gone, the effects it was suppressing will be amplified.”

Ah. Withdrawal. Wonderful.

He doesn’t give her a chance to adjust. He puts his hands on her ankles, and the magic surges forward, practically knocking her into the dream state. His presence is still there at her side, but it feels faint. Barely a whisper.

There are more images as his hands travel up. Learning stealth. More dagger work. Figuring out how to read body language to get the most information she can glean. Bloody, stabby things in the dark of night. She loses more things to this. Her last memory of her parents — a breakfast, Jake still a toddler — before the car bomb took them. The graduation ceremony when she is handed her PhD diploma, her old supervisor shaking her hand, jokingly formal. “Not bad, for a Gipsy urchin.” She hates the quip, but she still loves the old man — he took a chance on her. He hands her his seminal book on the history of the Rroma. The copyright page bears a lengthy autograph, most of it encouraging.

And still, this isn’t enough, but Solas’s presence alongside her is barely there now, a ghost of a ghost. And then, suddenly, it fades to nothing.

Margo falls deep into the memories, no longer a spectator, but a participant.

The flow of Solas’s magic stops abruptly, and Margo opens her eyes — though she doesn’t remember closing them — and looks at him. “There must be more. I still have nothing on what the spymaster wants.”

His expression hardens. “And if there is nothing left? This body’s former occupant is all but gone, and what remains are traces. Haphazard.”

She feels her jaw clench. “Then we get whatever we can.”

“And you lose more of yourself?”

“You’re seeing what’s being erased, yes?”

He nods curtly.

“Then it’s not all lost. You’ll tell me later what I forgot.”

The elf exhales through his teeth, a sharp, sibilant sound. And while Margo is tempted to start intellectualizing this, she doesn’t, because then she’ll put a stop to the whole thing, and this entire fucking exercise will have been moot.

“I cannot keep us at bay from the memories anymore. This will only get more difficult.” His tone is bone-dry.

She looks at him again, and she knows he’s hoping she would tell him to stop, except that he doesn’t exactly want to. Not quite. Because, by now, Lady Curiosity’s got him. Besides, judging by the rigid yet resigned body language, the elf has a fatalistic streak.

“Alright. Let’s get this show on the road and be done with it. What’s left? Hip area?”

He nods.

“Do it.”

His hands settle over her hip bones. Margo thinks she’s prepared, except this time, there is no more separation. The potion has lost its potency, and the withdrawal sucks her under.

And of course, they find what they were looking for, but later, and many times after that, she will wonder at what price.

It starts innocently enough.

She — Margo Duvalle (her father’s last name, not the names of the matriline that make up the root system of her sense of self) — is walking through a field of flowers. It’s summer. She wears a short cotton dress, and the tall grass tickles her legs. Baba’s shaggy shepherd dog runs ahead, down the meadow that leads up to the ancient river. A butterfly alights on the large blue globe of a thistle flower.

Gone.

She — Maile — is walking through tall grass, its blades heavy with water. She climbs a steep hill, careful not to lose her footing on the muddy trail. The top of the hill is desolate — nothing but rain, and pines, and an old abandoned shack, its wooden planks grey and weatherworn. She finds herself pacing, waiting, impatient. When the footsteps come, she whirls around, and he is there, the one waited for — a man in robes that look like armor. He is tanned and smooth like a river pebble. His gait is predatory and quick, and he glides up to her, feline grace stalking a prey. She feels heat blossom in her lower belly, and before long, they are unfastening each other’s garments, not nearly quickly enough.

Margo’s hips buckle. She arches her back, helpless to stop the reaction. She tries to control her body, but it’s no use. She is locked in its response, like in the horror of sleep paralysis, but perversely motile. And a second later, the magic reverbs through the elf. She sees his pupils dilate. A sigh — soft as a feather — escapes his lips, before he has a chance to press them together into a grim line. And then the memory rolls over them like the ocean tide it is, her body’s stored recollections no longer buffeted by the alchemical potency of her draught. Her lover presses her against the wall, and she wraps her thighs around his hips. He lifts her up, hands on her ass, and a second later they are joined. She grabs an overhead beam to give herself more leverage and echoes his movements, an urgent heat spreading through her. They match each other, the dance familiar, and longed for.

Wake-side, she can feel Solas’s hands tighten on her hips, and she’s pretty sure if she looked — if she could look — his knuckles would be white with strain. His entire body is locked into a self-negating paradox, equal and opposite impulses — to keep her at bay, and to pull her closer, the memory like an infection of the mind.

“I cannot stop this,” he chokes out, and she understands it, understands it at the absolutely basic level of the spell’s mechanism. To maintain a dwindling spirit, one must maintain the entire armature that sustains it through the whole of what remains of it. There is no fast-forward button. They will have to ride out the pre-recorded reel to its end.

And so, as Maile’s pleasure is rising at her lover’s quickening thrusts, Margo also feels Solas’s magic animate not just this nameless ghost that’s fucking her, but everything around them — the rickety wall at her back, the cool rain drops on her face, the damp sea air on her bare skin, the wind in the rustling pines, and, in the distance, the roar of an alien ocean.

Her host’s body climaxes, but of course, so does she, because they are the same by now. She’s jolted out of the dreamscape with a harsh inarticulate cry, and a second later, the magic reverbs back to its source. Solas’s thumbs caress her hips, a fraction of a movement that still feels momentous somehow, the subtle echo of him losing an invisible battle against himself, and then his entire body shudders. He makes a small noise at the back of his throat, and grinds his teeth, the muscles of his jaw visible in stark relief in the slanted light of the candle. He sways. Margo expects him to move his hands away, but he he does not.

Tears stream from the corners of her eyes, down her temples, and into her hair. For a few seconds, she is able to hold on to it — to the thing she lost to the remains of the other. Her daughter. Two years, five months, six days, and as the doctor said, too short a time, and they did everything they could. Too short a time, and now a birthday in the middle — the one before the diagnosis — gone, overwritten. It fades, safe for the memory of forgetting itself.

“There’s more.” She can barely force out the whisper.

After what feels like an eternity, Solas nods, eyes averted, and she wonders whether he’ll ever have the chutzpah to look at her again square in the face.

Or whether she will.

He moves his hands to her abdomen, the place where the recent scar is.

From there, it’s easy, comparatively speaking. And the only thing she loses to it is her 30th birthday party, which, to be perfectly honest, she can live without, because it’s patchy to begin with — too many cocktails, and maybe dancing on the bar table at one point.

She — Maile — walks up to a camp. There are bodies everywhere. Dead and still warm, while she was otherwise occupied. The patrol. She finds something in the mud — an amulet. The feeling that comes at the moment of recognition isn’t dread — it’s a step beyond it. The medallion is just like the one her lover wore, though his body is not among the corpses. A carefully premeditated betrayal she feels down to the marrow of her bones.

And then, the blasted Breach, cosmic horror that it is. And she’s fighting in a pure, desperate rage that only someone who wants to die would bring into battle. Before long, she gets her wish. A fiery form – and the word that comes to Margo’s mind is _Ifrit_ – gets into her head, her very soul.

And then Solas pulls her out of the dream state, just as the demon eviscerates her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by a public service announcement: don't engage in unprotected magical activity. Make sure that your magic protection has passed all regulations regarding quality and safety. Should your magic protection fail mid-ritual, suspend all magical activities until you are able to safely engage again.
> 
> Also, Bartolomeu de Gusmao, a 18th century Jesuit priest who worked on developing airships, and who had some problems with the Inquisition too.
> 
> Next up: Fallout


	6. Solamen miseris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Solas and Margo discuss unintended consequences.

When it is over, Margo remains on the bed in a thoughtless torpor, more exhausted than she can remember ever being. The silence stretches, thick and viscous. She struggles with the enormity of the misbegotten results of their disastrous experiment, and it feels like her mind would sooner snap than accommodate the contours of what they wrought. Before she loses herself to the impossibility of dealing with the sordid mess, Margo narrows her focus to the pinprick of a present immediate.

She has done this before. Dealt with the unimaginable. She can do it again. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time. Just keep walking. Platitudes to the rescue.

She doesn’t dare to look at the elf, though, for fear of what she might find in his expression.

There’s a whitish glow, and her peripheral vision catches a magical ripple moving across his frame, leaving in its wake the crisp bite of ozone. She steals a proper glance then. Solas, still seated on the chair, wordlessly gestures at her — barely a twitch of his fingers, like brushing off lint from one’s clothes. She surmises he’s offering her the same service without asking her directly whether she would like to… Well. Clean off, she supposes. Margo nods. As good a place to start with the whole one foot in front of the other strategy as any. A quick wave of magic passes over her, barely perceptible. But she feels refreshed, and her clothes are suddenly clean and smell of warm grass and thunderstorms. On-demand dry-cleaning. Nifty.

Since the metaphorical elephant in the room is just going to keep milling about awkwardly and trampling the precious china, the least they can do is acknowledge it.

She sits up and maneuvers herself to face him. She feels hungover.

Solas remains still as a statue, elbows on knees, hands clasped together in a tight grip, his gaze at the floor. She can’t quite make out his expression at this angle, but there is vertical groove between his eyebrows.

“Ok.” Margo draws a breath. Where to start? “This… This did not go as planned.”

He says nothing. Nor does he look at her, and his rigid posture and stony expression catch Margo’s irascible edge. Sure, she fucked up on the potion. But he wasn’t exactly reluctant to play Dr. Frankenstein either, so the least he could do is deal with the shambling results. “Look.” Margo keeps the irritation firmly under lock and key, and tries for conciliatory, but only manages politely neutral. Good enough for now. “There is nothing to be done for it now, so I’d rather not wallow in all the million shades of fucked-up. Are you all right?”

He looks up then, and Margo shrinks back. Under the tense surface of the elf’s now familiar features, she gets a glimpse of something else — a shadow passing in the grey fog of his eyes, there, then out of sight. And for some reason, she is viscerally reminded of the feeling of him, that sense of overwhelming presence as he animated the memories of Maile’s last rendezvous. It puts her in mind of the living landscapes of her world’s shamanic religions, the sense of intent in the very fabric of what would later become mere “natural phenomena.” The certain knowledge of a willful consciousness, as intimate as it is unfathomable, whose desires, beyond ken, drown you in their indifferent currents.

Another wrathful deity. Another cosmological horror.

And then, he is, once again, just Solas.

When he finally speaks, his voice is quiet and fierce. “Did you find what you sought, da’elgar?” Her brain struggles to process the alien word. At length, a meaning surfaces slowly, a linguistic inheritance left over from what remained of Maile. It is almost forgotten, like a mother tongue one spoke as a child, but lost from disuse. _Little spirit_. “Are the scales balanced to your satisfaction now?”

“You are angry,” Margo observes. Because, when in doubt, point out the obvious. That always goes over well.

“And you are not? Do you not feel revolted at what we did? This… violation?” He hacks the last word out, like it can’t leave his mouth fast enough.

Uh-oh. Is he talking about the sexual part of their walk down memory lane? Sure, it’s messy, to say the least, but “violation?” Her fingertips go numb and her stomach tries to drop into her heels. Oh dear Unspecified and Thoroughly Ill-tempered Deity, but she knows nothing about this guy. Perhaps it was deeply awful for him — who knows what experiences he is bringing to the table. And if the whole banging by proxy weren’t weird enough on its own terms, what if the encounter itself was entirely outside of the sorts of experiences he would consider desirable, or even fathomable? People have pretty strong preferences when it comes to their choice of sexual partners.

Then, suddenly, it hits her, and Margo stares at him in the mute horror of understanding. Because, for her, the whole experience can still retain the natural distance that her culture’s habits of mind assign to dream-states. Uncanny, but immaterial. A fugue from the actual. The comfort of “well, that was a fucked-up dream,” however real it felt at the time. Even if she no longer buys this, deep down, she can still lie to herself for just a little while longer…

But for him, this has never been an option. For him, what is, is.

Margo feels her cheeks heat up. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you to do this, it was selfish and incredibly shortsighted of me. I didn’t realize it’d go that way. Or that the only useful part of what remained of my predecessor would be this.” She is babbling. Not good. “To be clear, I don’t want you to think that I feel …uh… violated, if this is part of your concern. I mean, Maile certainly had questionable taste in men… And the… technical aspects of it were weird, and not how I’d go about it under normal circumstances… But…” Still babbling. Oh, she is just making a mess of this. “I am so sorry that this got forced on you. I would have made a stronger draught if I had the time, or the skill, but…” She runs out of words.

Solas frowns, perplexed, and then understanding dawns. “Ah.” His ears turn pink. “No, not that. That is not … what I meant.” He swallows, and then his face softens, and, in the next instant, turns abashed. “That particular aspect of it was not… It was not horrible. Not how I would prefer to go about it either, as you so tactfully put it, but…” He clears his throat again, and then colors quite a bit more, realizes this, and looks painfully flustered for a few seconds. And, at first, Margo is just immensely relieved, the weight of a deep dread she doesn’t know how to articulate suddenly lifted.

Until, that is, she realizes belatedly that for him it wasn’t quite the same “by proxy” as for her. Was it voyeuristic? Was it like watching a low-budget porno with a perfunctory gesture at a fantasy plot, or did he have to “inhabit” Maile’s lover? On a better day, this might make for an intellectually fascinating problem. Clearly, this is not a better day. Margo groans, and squeezes her eyes shut. She is getting butterflies in her stomach. Of all the possible responses, it just had to be the blasted butterflies. Insufferable insects. Pests, the lot of them. A pox on all the houses. She squeezes her eyes tighter. Oh, no… no no no. She tries to say something, but all she manages is “Hrmm.”

“Let us… perhaps reserve this particular discussion for another day.” Margo cracks open one eye and ventures a look at the elf. He takes a breath, and exhales softly. “I meant the alteration to your spirit. The… melding. Do you not feel its wrongness?”

She sighs. She doesn’t have the lexis for this shit. Fade. Spirits. Hellmouth. Magic. Burn the witches, hail the Inquisition, no one ever expects it.

Margo puts a firm stop to the mental drivel. “Look.” She hesitates, smothering the impulse to lay her hand on his knee — or pat his shoulder. “There is this law of physics in my world — and I would guess that it works by and large the same way here, because universal laws like to do that. It’s called conservation of energy. Put simply, when something accrues somewhere, it has to be taken from somewhere else. Like what you said about spirits. They have to sort of accumulate in the Fade, right? Like a sort of… ecological habit? So same rules apply. Add a little here, take a little from elsewhere.”

By the time Margo is done with the rousing speech on Newtonian thermodynamics, Solas is staring at her with eerie concentration. Neither of them looks away, and then the moment stretches past socially appropriate, and they find themselves in the uncanny valley of overlong eye contact. She tries to drop her gaze, but she’s stuck. The elf jerks his head — as if to shake off the torpor — and the odd bubble bursts. He straightens. His face is placid again, safe for the telltale tightness to his jaw.

“This is an apt metaphor. And I understand your argument.” He swallows again, vacillating on the edge of a question. If she didn’t know any better, and judging purely by the body language, she’d think he’s working up the courage to ask her out — which strikes her as hilarious, in an absurdist sort of way, and Margo bites the inside of her cheek to suppress the impending hysterics. “I would welcome the chance to discuss your world with you at length, as it promises to be a fascinating subject. At some later time.”

Ah. Wait. _Is_ he asking her out?

He pauses, then forges on. “But it does not change the fact that our clumsy fumbling altered your very essence. My anger was misdirected. It was I who was selfish. I was curious about the possibilities of the spell. And now, because…” He is clearly looking for words, and when he finds them, they come out with a generous helping of self-loathing. “Because of my failure to guide you towards a wiser course of action, even when the responsibility to know better was mine, you are no longer simply Margo — that is your name, yes? You are also this other. Maile, was it?” He shakes his head once and looks down at his hands again.

Ah. So he doesn’t like Maile very much at all. And that’s at least part of his discomfort. And the other part of it is about self-control, but she is too tired and too raw to really give it the analysis it deserves.

Margo exhales, a profound sadness rolling over her like a dark tide. “If we count essence by quantity, then I’m still me, I think. The dose of Maile is, relatively speaking, rather small. And it seems fitting that something of what remained of her should still be... recorded.”

Solas doesn’t respond right away. “Not at this cost,” he finally offers, his voice quiet.

“Hold on.” Margo tries to set her tone to neutral, or, failing that, to keep the tremor out. “You have my memories now, right? Maybe you can simply tell me about them. Or show me at some point? Could this be done? Sure, it won’t feel like my own lived experience, but I have enough context to incorporate them into the broader story. And over time, these things tend to get all mixed in anyway. Tricky thing, memory.” She smiles, hoping it’ll help lift the mood. “See, aren’t hermeneutics fun?”

This surprises an incredulous chuckle out of him, and his expression becomes tentatively less bleak. “An interesting thought. I believe this may be possible, to a degree. You would have to learn to meet me in the Fade — what you call dreams. There, it would be easier to show you. Do you have some degree of control over your dreaming?”

Margo frowns. Is he asking her if she has lucid dreams? “Sometimes.” That sounds a bit too optimistic. “Not well,” she amends after a pause. “In my world, there are religious traditions with techniques to teach you that, but they are rudimentary compared to what I suspect you have here. I used to try to dabble when I was younger, but then it sort of fell by the wayside…”

He perks up. “Good. Rudimentary is still a step forward, and we will build on whatever base you might have. You should begin to practice as soon as possible. Even if it will not repair what we did, with time you could learn to arrange the memories of this other spirit to fit with yours better. And recuperate some of what you lost.”

“Can you really move through your dreams in the same way as when you’re awake?” A note of excitement creeps into her voice. This would make for a hell of a book project. Maybe not an academic book, but she could finally write a self-help manual and make the NYT bestsellers list. Does Thedas have a bestsellers list?

“Not everyone is adept at it, but it has always come easily for me. We should see if this particular skill might be in your repertoire of latent talents as well.”

With her luck, it won’t be, and it’s going to be a long hard slog to learn anything useful. But if there’s anything that will get her away from the temptation to descend into hand-wringing misery — _woe is me, what does it all mean!_ — it’s curiosity. Killed the cat in the end, but it had a fun life while it lasted.

Solas’s expression turns grave again. “There remains the practical matter of your conversation with the spymaster. If you are to survive in this world, you must learn all you can about it. Maile’s lover was a Tevinter mage. I would guess that her patrol was slaughtered at his behest, or with his prior knowledge.”

Margo nods, thinking. “So, not the Qunari, whoever they are, but…Tevinter?”

“Yes. Leliana will want to know this. As well as why you were spared when others were not. I do not recommend... telling her the truth. But be careful that she does not catch you in a lie either.”

“As long as she doesn’t strap me to a lie detector, I’ll manage.”

He looks puzzled for a second, and then he nods his understanding. “She will most certainly seek to minimize the likelihood of your dissimulating. And she may or may not restrain you, depending on whether she believes you present an immediate threat. Do you have your book with you?”

Margo gets up and reaches for her coat, still on the back of the chair. Solas follows, his posture studiously formal. After some patting of pockets, she pulls out Auntie’s compendium and hands it to the elf. He leafs through until he lands on the desired page, and drums his long fingers against an inscription. “Ah, yes, it is here… this one. It is a standard antidote against most poisons that seek to bend your will.”

Margo leans over to get a better look at the formula, and she suddenly becomes acutely aware of their proximity. He glances down at her, expression unreadable, and for a few seconds, their gazes snag again. Time hitches — an eternity trapped in a few moments — and then Margo forces her eyes back to the page.

Oh, fuck.

He hands her the formulary.

“Well...” Margo tucks the book away. She rubs her face with both hands, trying to regain a semblance of normalcy, but the features beneath her palms feel completely out of place. Right. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which the body snatchers are defeated because everything feels weird. “We should get some sleep.”

The unintended irony of her statement is not lost on the elf. He hesitates for a second, but then his body language shifts. He clasps his hands behind his back, still standing beside her just a hair closer than polite distance. His face, in three-quarter profile, is bathed in shadow, the curve of a sharp cheekbone contoured by the unsteady light of the candle. He has the look of someone deliberating at a fork in the road. And then, decision made, Solas’s expression becomes a bit cheeky, and Margo’s ground drops from under her again, but for a whole new set of reasons. “The night is young. Are you quite certain you do not wish to dredge up a few of Maile’s other indiscretions?”

Margo takes a closer look, and, yep. He’s teasing. All right, then. So the elf has taken this whole damnable thing in stride, and with panache. She shouldn’t have worried about any kind of lack of chutzpah, then. Apparently, he’s got it in spades.

Oh, to hell with it. Making light of the whole blasted thing seems preferable to anxious wallowing. She grins. “And here I thought you mentioned that you would prefer a more conventional approach to the task.”

His eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and then he is coughing — rather unconvincingly — into his fist. Margo smiles smugly. What’s good for the goose and all that…

Solas collects himself quickly. “If by ‘task’ you mean helping a stranded spirit from an altogether different world survive the perils of this one, then I fear I cannot boast enough experience for anything approximating ‘convention.’” A spark of mirth flickers in his eyes, the corners of his lips curving into a small smile. “As to the other matter, I suppose one should strive to balance the allure of the unexpected with the risk of unintended consequences.”

Is this his idea of flirting? Or delivering a warning? Margo tries — and fails — to keep the butterfly infestation in check. She cuts him a narrowed-eye look, fishes for a clever comeback, and comes up with... absolutely nothing. For a very short moment, Solas looks like a cat who crunched through the canary, chased it down with some cream, and is currently contemplating the goldfish. And then his face shutters, and he gestures to the door. “Perhaps there will be future occasions to revisit this. Sleep well.”

Margo can’t tell whether it sounds like an invitation, a dismissal, or a suggestion. She draws a breath. “Thank you. For your help.”

Solas says nothing, only peers at her again with that quizzical expression, so Margo nods, and proceeds to the door.

“A question, if I may?”

She stops with her hand on the door handle. “Go for it,” she says.

“The people you have encountered here so far… do you find them to be quite different? From those of your world, that is?”

She mulls this over. “We do look similar, as far as species go.” And, to be fair, the convergences are truly bizarre. What are the chances that another form of sentient life a universe away would have evolved along parallel paths? “But similarity doesn’t mean sameness, so I can’t say for certain yet. The magic is a bit of a doozy. And the variation of phenot-... physiques.”

His face remains unreadable safe for a small frown, as if her response is not what he was expecting. Margo shrugs. “I suppose I have yet to encounter a spirit — or a demon. I might change my tune then.”

This seems to strike him as amusing, because his eyes crinkle in a smile. “I expect you might. And I would welcome the opportunity to hear your impressions, should this occur.”

As she leaves, she could swear she hears the softest of chuckles behind her.

Unspecified Local Deity preserve her from demons, hellmouths, and cheeky, mercurial elves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by Good Intentions INC, for all your paving needs.
> 
> Next up: alchemy tests
> 
> As always, thank you so much for your comments, kudos, and follows. <3
> 
> The title of this chapter is a nod to Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus.
> 
> The full line, (given to Mephistopheles), is: "Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris." -- It is a comfort to the unfortunate to have had companions in woe. In other words, misery loves company.


	7. Name your poison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo officially becomes an Apprentice Alchemist, and deals with an unlikely visitor.

Margo runs to the apothecary, the wind slicing right through her coat. Despite the inclement weather, she almost wishes she had a longer way to go — she has jitters to burn off. She bursts through the door, shivering, only to find that the shop, which she had hoped would be deserted, is in fact very much occupied.

Master Adan is sitting at the desk, with a large bottle of something that looks like it’ll put hair on your chest, and then burn it right off. He’s not alone. Commander Rutherford is perched on a crate, looking in his ridiculous mantle every bit like a ruffled crow. He seems vexed and vaguely out of place. Right. _You know nothing, Jon Snow_. The apothecary's third occupant is an elven woman Margo has only briefly glimpsed before — a severe-looking redhead in some kind of fussy embroidered robe.

This makes the prospect of making the antidote Solas pointed out that much less likely.

“Ah, if it’s not our prodigal alchemist in the making! Long night? Wherever have you been?” Adan leans back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the desk in an impatient rhythm.

Uh oh, what is this? Some kind of intervention? Of all the nights they could have picked… Margo narrows her eyes. The alchemist is giving her a slightly mocking look.

Right. Haven. Haven is a village. Villages tend to breed gossip like it’s the ticket to wealth, prosperity, and an endless supply of plum liquor. Who needs security cameras when you have a village? Add to that a village run like a military camp with the secret police at the helm, and you get… well, the Inquisition.

Margo begins to unbutton her coat, because inside the apothecary the fireplace is roaring, and the heat is blistering. Which should account for the sweat suddenly prickling between her shoulder-blades.

“Do pull up a seat, my precocious pupil. I was just filling in Commander Rutherford and Enchanter Minaeve on your progress.”

Hell in a sack, what is this? Is this about his amrita vein supply? Did he notice she was poaching from the jar? She barely took anything.

Cullen clears his throat. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk to you, agent...?”

Margo is pretty sure he wants her to supply a name. What is the likelihood that he would settle for “Prickly”?

“I go by Margo these days,” she offers noncommittally, hoping that they’ll assume that it is simply one of Torquemada’s codenames. Spies have codenames, right? There’s no way that “Charter” is an actual name, unless her parents really had some kind of weird naming practice where you open a book at random and pick the first word that pops up.

“That doesn’t sound Elvhen,” Minaeve comments, whose name, of course, does sound "Elvhen," all bright consonants and long vowels.

“It isn’t,” Margo offers cautiously, and wonders if she should have gone by Maile instead, though that would feel wrong on too many levels.

“You are scheduled to speak with Leliana tomorrow morning, correct?” Cullen seems like the most neutrally minded of the group. The other two look like they may have some additional agenda, aside from whatever Cullen is there for. Margo focuses on the military man.

“Yes, I believe she said at first light.”

“Good.” He nods to himself. “Once that’s over with… I — we — have a proposition for you.”

Interesting. Does this mean that Torquemada didn’t spread her gospel of paranoia about Margo’s status as a double agent for whatever the Qun might be? Are the local branches of government not on full disclosure terms? Unless the spymaster decided to hedge her bets, and suspects Maile’s non-involvement — but is lording this over her for other reasons? “Provided the spymaster finds our conversation to her satisfaction,” Margo supplies, voice as neutral as she can make it.

Cullen nods. “Provided that.”

So he must know at least something of Torquemada's suspicions. “I’m listening,” she says.

Cullen leans forward on his crate, props his elbows on his knees, and clasps his hands together. The pose seems casual enough, but Margo can’t help but notice a kind of jitteriness to him. Maybe he’s got a secret stash of coffee somewhere.

“As you well know, we are very short on supplies, resources, and people. Insofar as this impacts Master Adan’s ability to enhance the Inquisition’s work, we need to source more — not just plants, but other ingredients as well. Elfroot, of course, is still a key strategic resource, but we can’t limit ourselves to defensive formulas.” He exchanges a look with the others. “Your injury was severe enough that I wouldn’t deploy you in your usual capacity, agent, but we can’t afford to get too picky, unfortunately. We’d like to send you to the field with a small group to scout for easily accessible locations of the things we might need. It won’t put you on the front lines. A discrete, minimal risk mission — you can collect whatever your team can carry, and then you’ll simply report back to me with a location.”

Margo’s eyes widen. Send her to the field? Sure, she can dig up some plants, and, as Solas would say, stuff them in a sack, but this? Last time she tried to do that, she almost got eaten by wolves. If it weren’t for the elf’s timely intervention… At the thought of said elf, Margo is unhappily surprised by a jolt of vertigo in the pit of her stomach. She winces.

Cullen interprets her expression as reticence. “I’m sorry, agent. If it were up to me, I’d set up a rotation schedule that allows for recovery, but we just can’t afford it — there are too few people to rotate.”

Shit. How is she supposed to survive without any fighting skills to speak of? Sure, Maile was a stabby sort. “Prickly” indeed. But Maile is no longer the one at the helm, and she can’t just rely on instinct, hoping she will magically perform, like some kind of medieval Neo. “I know Kung-Fu.” Sure, hun. Kung-Fu won’t help much against an arrow to the face, or whatever other unpleasant weapons the locals deploy.

Margo casts Cullen a quick glance. He’s waiting patiently for her response, safe for a slight tremor in his left leg. Odd. He doesn’t strike her as the neurotic type.

“Commander Rutherford, I … ah, appreciated the vote of confidence.” And she hopes he catches the double meaning, in regards to whatever Torquemada might have been telling him. “Whatever happened to me in the last battle — and I’m sorry I don’t remember much — I seem to be having trouble recalling basic combat techniques. I think I will be more useful to the Inquisition in a civilian capacity.”

At this point, Master Adan pipes up. “Since I am formally the closest thing you have to someone who’s willing to take responsibility for your ingredient pilfering, dangerous alchemical formula improvising hide…” He gives her a very pointed look, although it appears more amused and exasperated than angry. “I get to decide whether this would be helpful to _me_ in _my_ civilian capacity.”

Margo smiles at him, probably totally sheepishly. She likes Adan. And he is right. He did take a chance on her.

“So, unless the spymaster has other ideas about what to do with you, I think we should start planning for your first expedition,” Adan concludes.

Cullen offers her a surprisingly friendly smile. “As to the other issue, I’ve seen this sort of loss of function happen after head injuries. In my experience, skills can be retrained, provided dedication and hard work. Until we are able to increase our ranks — and add more specialized trainers — we will match you with someone who can help you get back up to speed. Varric can assist with some of the footwork, but you still need to re-learn how to hold you own against heavily armored opponents.”

Margo looks between the three of them in puzzlement. Is the Inquisition this desperate for cadres? And then, she reminds herself that she is not really an unknown quantity to them. Maile had fought alongside Cullen’s and Cassandra’s men.

She has almost forgotten about Minaeve. The elf chooses this moment to intervene. “While you’re out running your errands, would you do me a favor? My research depends on procuring some very specific ingredients from… Are you squeamish, agent?”

“Depends what you’re asking for,” Margo offers cautiously. This is going to be some gnarly animal parts stuff. The rare gland of some rare beast that’s going to eat you dead before you have a chance to get close to any useful anatomical structures it might have.

“In alchemy, we incorporate anything that is useful, and we are always seeking to expand our repertoire of substances,” Adan offers helpfully, pours himself two fingers of an opaque pink liquid that looks suspiciously like Pepto-Bismol from his bottle, and downs it in one gulp.

Cullen, looking a little pained at this point, decides to cut to the chase. “In the event that you run into some things we don’t know much about — demons, mainly — we’d like you to… Well. If anything useful remains from them once your team is done, Enchanter Minaeve here would love to take a look.”

“I would. Try not to damage the samples too much as you bring them back.”

“Although of course I expect you to bring some ingredients for the shop as well,” Adan adds, with a slightly cross look at the elven woman. “We’ll be starting on ichors next week.”

The matter apparently settled, Adan passes out mismatched receptacles in lieu of shot glasses. Cullen gets a clay mug, Minaeve something that is probably a wine glass, though the word “goblet” seems more fitting, and Margo gets a beaker. Adan pours the round, and despite the difference between the mismatched china, she is pretty sure he’s given them all the exact same amount. Alchemists…

“What is this, exactly?” Margo finally asks after sniffing the substance. It does not, in fact, smell like Pepto-Bismol. It has a distinctly ferrous odor…

“Archdemon’s Tears, it’s called.”

Margo quirks an eyebrow. “Is it?”

Adan guffaws, and then he’s joined by Minaeve’s rather more delicate trilling laughter. Even Cullen smiles his lopsided smirk that’s eerily like Jake’s.

“Of course not, lass. It’s mostly brandy, with an addition of fermented dragon’s blood and demon ichor extract. It’s what gives it that frothy, slippery consistency.” He swirls the disgusting thing in his glass with obvious relish. “Master Taigan had a bottle he had squirreled away for a special occasion.”

Wait. Did he say dragon? Dragon’s blood? As in, dragons are an actually existing thing?

Instead of all that, Margo, ever the diplomat, asks “So what’s the occasion?”

Cullen shrugs. “I guess we could say ‘field season,’ but to be honest with you, this is more of a tribute to whatever deities might be listening. We’re sending a team out tomorrow with…ah…Lady Trevelyan.”

Margo stills. They’re sending the kid out to the field? Tomorrow? What the actual fuck are these people thinking?

“Right. Have to start somewhere, Commander.” Adan raises his glass, and forces Cullen to toast with him. Minaeve gestures over the booze first — could be an offering to the gods, or could be a plain old spell to make the horrible substance taste less foul that it looks — and raises her glass too.

They are all looking at her expectantly, so Margo, with an internal wince, joins in the toast.

“To not everyone getting slaughtered right away,” Adan proposes tactfully.

Cullen shakes his head. “You know what, Adan, I will drink to that.”

And they all do. The drink tastes exactly as one might expect.

Once Margo is done blinking tears out of her eyes and clearing the burn from her throat, she turns her attention to Cullen. At least he seems a bit more relaxed now. The leg tremor is gone. “You are sending Evie out to get this healer in the Hinterlands, aren’t you?"

There’s a flash of surprise, but he hides it quickly. “We have to.” He sighs. “We all know she’s not ready.” He stares down at his drink, expression conflicted. A man responsible for the lives of others, making difficult calculations. “Solas, Cassandra, and Varric are really the only people who are remotely qualified to accompany her, though Andraste’s Ashes, I hate to risk them. But we truly are out of time. Leliana’s scouts will lay the ground work in preparation as much as they can.” He shrugs. “Did I mention we are stretched thin? That was an understatement.” He rubs the back of his head. “I just hope they all make it back in one piece. We can’t afford more losses.”

Margo’s entire world careens off kilter. Oh, Evie, kiddo. The sudden anxiety grips her in its icy claws — the kid, but then, the others, too. It just had to be the people she’s managed to establish some sort of rapport with. Varric, and the fact that she still owes him a beer, and wants to actually sit down and really hear his stories, both the ones that are inconsequential, and the ones that are deeply important to him, which he seems to mix in with the trifling ones so that no one would know which is which. And Cassandra — much as Margo finds the warrior princess’s earnest intensity amusing (and not a little terrifying) — seems like she would die to protect Evie in a heartbeat, and Margo doesn’t want to miss the chance to get to know what else might be there.

Solas. Oh, bloody hell — the blasted elf, cheeky temperamental unreadable bastard that he is — has so far proven an ally of sorts. That one, she _actually_ owes, and she’d rather not get saddled with the karmic debt.

There is no way that this should feel like such a punch to the kidneys — she doesn’t _know_ them, any of them. But… Well. Beggars aren’t choosers.

She reminds herself that they are all — well, except for Evie — battle-ready and trained, more than she will ever be. They can take care of themselves. But she would be blind not to notice the tension around Cullen’s eyes, and the way that Master Adan has been guzzling booze like he wants to numb whatever thoughts he might be having on the prospective success of the whole operation.

And it really boils down to Torquemada’s framing of the whole thing, crows take her shriveled little heart. They are all disposable. Cassandra, Varric, Cullen, Adan, and all of the spymaster’s little birds, of course. Solas. Herself. If Evie can actually close the cosmic holes, they are all expendable, except for the kid. No matter what happens, Evie must live. And she thinks that any of the others — whatever their particular agendas might be — would lay down their lives to protect the kid. And if Evie can’t fight — and not just that, if she can’t stay out of the way — then the others have to compensate.

Margo rubs her face. One step at a time. Foot in front of the other. She’s got other things to worry about right now.

“When do you want me to go?” she asks Cullen.

“A day or two at most. You’ll be following closely in the footsteps of the main team to lend a hand if needed. At the very least, you can keep the field infirmary stocked and operative. We can’t keep sitting on our hands for longer than that.”

Adan pours another round, and they all drink it in silence. The second time, the foul shit doesn’t burn quite as much.

After that, Cullen gets up, and says his goodbyes. Minaeve and Adan don’t appear to be in a hurry to depart, and Margo has the unpleasant suspicion that there is another conversation that is about to happen once the Commander is out of earshot.

She’s right. “So,” Adan starts, with a quick look at Minaeve, who gives him a subtle nod.

Margo makes a face that she hopes conveys polite interest.

“You were trained by a hedge-witch, you say.”

Margo blinks at him. Where is this going? “I was, yes.”

“Raised by one?” Margo hesitates, and then nods. Baba would approve.

“But you yourself are not an apostate? You do not have magic, correct?” Minaeve observes, with just a tiny note of haughtiness.

“That’s correct. None whatsoever, as far as I know.”

Adan smiles to himself, somehow pleased. “Good, good. Here is the thing, fledgling. The profession has rules. Like everything else has rules. Hierarchies. Levels of accomplishment. If you’re a mage trained in a Circle, there are some magics you can use, and others you can’t. Same rules apply with Alchemy.”

She makes a mental note to figure out what a Circle is. Either way, this is going to be a lecture about helping herself to ingredients and mixing up random potions out of turn, she’s pretty sure. Margo braces herself for an exposition on proper professional conduct.

“But apostates… like, say, your friend Solas,” at this Adan gives her a very weighty look, “don’t have quite the same compunctions. They are, as it were, outside the law, and will use magic in whatever way they see fit.”

Ok, maybe a lecture about the dangers of associating with apostates?

“Put very bluntly, I don’t have time to train you in the proper order. The world is ending. The Inquisition is hanging on by a thread. Yet, there are principles. We're not going to descend into savagery, are we clear? You need to at be an apprentice to be able to do some of the work we need. Transmogrifying metals, for one. Lyrium, for another. Ichors. And I’m not about to trust an unqualified ‘dabbler’ with rare and precious plants. Don’t think I didn’t notice your tea-making efforts.” He shakes his head.

Instead of feeling mortified, Margo practically vibrates with the excitement of sudden realization. He’s talking about ritual empowerments. It’s a living lineage tradition, but with empowerments, which means there’s going to be distinct theories of potency and a whole cosmological system that comes with that. Secret knowledge. She could do a whole monograph on this, and there she was, struggling with coming up with a solid second research project. And she can do ethnography-based research. Take that, tenure promotion committee!

Except, of course, it’s unlikely that she’ll get tenure at her university considering her original body is likely not showing up at work anymore, if it’s even alive, but details, right? She can be an independent scholar. At least, she won’t have to deal with the Institutional Review Board to get her research approved. Take that, IRB.

Margo finds herself grinning like a maniac.

Adan and Minaeve exchange a look. “Did I mention to you that she’s an odd lass?”

“Once or twice,” Minaeve offers dryly.

“In any case, this is why Minaeve is here. We need a witness.”

“We are going to do this now?” Margo asks, somewhere between thrilled and terrified. She doesn’t even have a notebook to write this all down. Or a recorder. Ethnographers use recorders, right?

“No sense in delaying it."

“So what do I do?”

Adan straightens, adopting and officious expression. “Enchanter Minaeve is going to pick a formula for you to make. Traditionally, the chosen potion is a poison, and you will then have however much time you have left to make an antidote, and counteract the poison's effects.”

Well, that doesn’t sound like a very sustainable way of going about it. She wonders what the attrition rate for alchemy students is.

Minaeve gives her a tense smile. “Do not worry. Adan and I have already discussed this. The test is largely a formality, and because we are doing it in such a hurried manner — and because you already do have some training — I have picked a formula that will make you… uncomfortable, but most likely will not kill you.”

Another silent look passes between Adan and the elf.

Margo looks at the Enchanter more carefully. There’s something distinctly… devious about Minaeve’s expression. It’s going to be an emetic, isn’t it? Or something else that causes digestive unpleasantness.

Not one to waste valuable time, Minaeve passes her a velum. Margo takes it, noting the slight tremor in her hand as she does. This is all well and good, but really, they have to do this today of all days? She’s had enough wonky formulas to last her at least a week. And there is the matter of her talk with Torquemada, though perhaps she can kill two birds with one stone, and make the antidote for both occasions.

She lays the vellum down on the workstation, and puts Auntie’s compendium next to it.

“How much time do I have?” she asks, settling into the new task.

“However much you need,” Minaeve offers, and again, she seems a little… gleeful, for lack of a better word.

Oh, this is going to suck.

The name of the formula on top of the ingredient list is not particularly legible. Something that starts with "Imsh" or "Imsn" - the rest is smudged - and then another word, which reads like "barge," or "farge." The ingredient list is not too complicated. One measure of “Some Fungus,” also known as deep mushroom, of the blightcap variety. Sounds unpleasant. Three measures of amrita vein, which she already knows. And five measures of something called “witherstock.” Grind, mix, boil, and add a spoonful of honey.

As she assembles the ingredients, Master Adan passes her a jar of something containing a reddish-brown powder that smells like an unholy mixture of vanilla bean and three-day-old dirty socks.

“Witherstock,” he offers, by way of an explanation.

At this, he and the Enchanter exchange yet another pointed look. Aha, so this witherstock is likely what will cause the toxicity.

In about fifteen minutes, she has a dry mixture to set on a water bath, and Margo peeks at the antidote formula that Solas had pointed out to her.

Except, of course, there’s a hitch. “Master Adan? Do we have a seven-year old red headed bastard’s urine on hand? Or do we substitute? And by bastard, does Ines mean a child out of wedlock, or is that a commentary on the donor’s character?”

Adan chokes on his Pepto-Bismol. “You’re trying to make Andraste’s Promise? Why?” He frowns. “That’s against mind-warping potions. How did you…” He cuts himself off.

Again, that silent look. This time, a very suspicious one. Aha. Good to know. So… not bowel movement troubles. The formula they want her to drink must be some kind of mind-altering substance. A hallucinogen? She’s had enough hallucinations for the day, thank you very much.

“Can I make it? As in, do we have the ingredients?”

Adan shrugs. “You can use the urine of a red-haired druffalo instead of the original. But there’s also a simplified formula. One that skips the dawn lotus root. It’s not as effective, of course, but in a pinch…”

Right, so no dawn lotus root, no detoxifying in urine necessary, and hence, no red-headed bastards required. Sounds good.

Master Adan takes the opportunity to write out the less fussy recipe next to Auntie’s original one. Margo takes a look. A five ingredient deal, fairly straight forward by the looks of it. She can do it.

“As a reminder, you cannot start on the antidote before you have ingested the assigned potion. The point of this test is not just to see how well you acquit yourself in the technical aspects of the craft, but whether you have the strength of character for the practice.” That prissy tirade is from Minaeve, of course.

It does make some sense. She should be able to work under duress. She just hopes that if it is a hallucinogenic, her mind doesn’t manifest something really unpleasant, like, say, murderous psychotic clowns. Psychotic clowns would be distracting.

Another ten minutes of minding the water bath, and the concoction is ready. It no longer smells of vanilla. Just socks.

Margo picks up the pot with a rag, and pours its contents into a fresh beaker.

“Do I wait for it to cool? Or can I sip it?”

Maybe there’s a nifty magical way to cool the liquid.

Master Adan hands her another beaker. “Just…” he waves his hand. “Pour it back and forth a bit.”

Ooh. High tech. She does as instructed, pouring the potion from one beaker to the other until it’s drinkable.

“How much of it do I need?”

Adan holds up two fingers. Right. Double shot. She measures out approximately 40 ml, and leaves the rest of the brew on the table.

“Not toasting to all living beings this time,” Margo cautions.

Adan just shakes his head in bafflement.

She knocks it back. Yup. Socks. She waits. When nothing interesting happens, Margo gets up, and starts to gather ingredients for Andraste’s Promise. A strange, whispering sound rustles at the edges of her hearing, but other than that, everything seems much the same. No clowns. So far so good.

The antidote calls for dried bees. She’s pretty sure she’s seen a jar of them on the top shelf. She reaches, grabs it, and when she turns around, there is a third guest in the room.

Ah, shit.

Well, at least it’s not a clown.

Solas is leaning casually against a bookshelf, every bit the Leftist intellectual, complete with the slightly mocking smirk.

Margo cuts him a dirty look, and hauls her bees to the work table. “Don’t you have a revolution to start?” she grumbles under her breath.

“Ah. Da’elgar. How very interesting. Fancy meeting you here. Whatever trouble are you in?”

She’s about to inform him that he doesn’t, technically, exist, except something is definitely going wonky with her perception. The sound of his voice sends a shiver down her spine, and then it settles somewhere in the general direction of what her very perky yoga instructor, a lifetime ago, liked to call her “root chakra.” As in, “you should feel this stretch in your root chakra,” which, obviously, is a lot more palatable to the bourgeois sensibilities of middle-class urban yogis than its crasser anatomical analogue.

Oh, hell no. Really? A hallucinogenic aphrodisiac? That’s what they decided to go with?

She steals a glance at Adan and Minaeve. The bastards are all settled in, clearly intent on watching the show. “Enchanter Minaeve, would you consider donating some urine at a later date?” Margo asks acerbically. Maybe any old red-headed bastard would do.

Minaeve looks suitably incensed. Adan just grins. “Ah, I think it’s kicked in.”

Solas — who is really not there, Margo reminds herself — moves to stand beside the work table, presumably to get a better look at what she’s doing. Except that her body isn’t at all buying the illusory nature of the whole experience, because her heartbeat quickens, and a not altogether unpleasant — though certainly uncomfortable — pulling sensation spreads through her lower belly. She forces herself to pick up the mortar and pestle to start on the bees. Right. Bees. Grinding bees into powder. A completely reasonable task, that. Very absorbing.

Except, she can barely focus with him there.

“Shoo,” Margo tells the phantom, feeling both cross with herself, and with him, and with the whole absurdity of the situation. She’s met with an amused little smirk. “Fine. Minimally, make yourself useful.”

This, apparently, was not the right thing to say. The illusory elf glides right behind her then, his legs almost brushing the back of her thighs as she leans over her work. She stills. And then — she should ask him to donate some urine too while she’s at it, maybe just about any bastard would do — slides his hands over her hips, and pulls her gently against himself. She watches, a little mesmerized, as one hand then lands next to Auntie’s book on the workbench. The other arm encircles her waist, and locks her firmly in place. And then he leans forward a bit, and rests his chin on her shoulder, lips at her ear.

“Ah. What have they made you drink? Something that creates a little Fade pocket for you to get lost in, it seems,” he whispers. “I may be able to… help.”

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” she manages to grind out, around the furiously beating pulse in her throat.

“What makes you believe I am not?” he chuckles, and she can feel its rumble against her back.

Oh hell on a stick, what if it’s not entirely a hallucination? Wait. Maybe then she can reason with him — somehow impart on him that this shit is important, and that she is in the middle of something here. (What is she in the middle of, exactly? Something to do with bees. Bees? Why the hell is she pulverizing the poor things?) But of course, it’s taking everything she’s got not to, say, shimmy her hips — purely out of academic curiosity, mind you — and see what reaction might ensue. Of course, it might look a bit undignified, with the peanut gallery sitting there at the edge of their seats. But on the other hand, it’s not like they can see the hallucination. And the hallucination probably doesn’t see them, either. Besides, people shimmy all the time, for all kinds of reasons, don’t they? And when else will she have the opportunity to test whether hallucinations follow a predetermined script, or adapt to input from their environment?

So, she does it. And there is definitely a reaction. And a very solid one at that, for a phantom. She’s also pressed more tightly against the work table, and has to brace herself against it with both hands, lest she collapse into the damnable bees.

“I am reasonably sure I could help with that as well, if that is your wish.”

The peanut gallery leans forward. All they’re missing is popcorn.

Right. A test of will. Wasn’t that Enchanter Minaeve little shtick? “I’m a little busy,” she manages.

Another chuckle she feels right down to her core. “So it appears. Do not let me distract you.”

She exhales through her teeth. At least the bees are kind of powdery now. What was that about rashvine? “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re only in my head,” she grumbles, with a whole lot less certainty that she’d like, and of course, the hallucination knows this perfectly well because it succumbs to another fit of quiet hilarity.

“Only in your head, am I? Should I take this as a challenge? Or an invitation?” the so-not-real elf asks, and then his teeth graze her earlobe. Elven ears, it turns out, are rather sensitive. Margo’s legs turn liquid. The only thing keeping her upright is the work table — and the phantom’s unreasonably tangible grip.

“Please.” At this point, it’s more of a whimper, really. The blasted concoction must be in full swing, because all she can think of is what his lips might taste like, and whether he’s Ok with tongue. Although they are better positioned for other sorts of things. They could just cut to the chase, and keep the kissing for after. Which opens a whole other avenue for speculations. “Don’t sabotage me,” she finally whispers, before all capacity for critical thinking evaporates.

Solas, who is not there at all, stills. And then the illusion steps back, and Margo can breathe a little bit more effectively again.

“Ah, vhenan. Is that the word?” And for a hallucination, there is very convincing regret in his voice, but also something... not quite right, like a subtle dissonance. “Very well, little spirit. I suppose we will have the chance to revisit this.”

She looks at him then, and in that moment, her mind almost cracks at the irresolvable uncertainty of his presence.

“Help me get through this?” she finally pleads, trying, and largely failing, to keep her eyes locked with his, and not on his lips, or the line of his jaw, or the sharp contour of his cheekbones, or the cute dimple on his chin or… further down on all the other details she hasn’t really had a chance to properly consider yet. The elf, damn him, notices this of course, and imposes no such artificial restrictions on himself. Margo feels her cheeks burn at what is, by any definition, a rather exploratory gaze. “You’re a tease, and a flirt, and I will sprinkle stinging nettles in your underwear drawer if you don’t desist,” she promises.

He cocks an eyebrow, clearly amused, and he considers her with another one of his cheeky little smirks.

“That’s cheating!” Minaeve pipes up, a bit belatedly. “You cannot solicit help from or threaten the illusions.”

“No, that’s absolutely within the rules.” That’s Master Adan, and when Margo looks, he is actually giving her an encouraging smile, and a firm nod.

She’s still going to get these two for this. Vengeance. Cold dish. All that.

“You would ask for my help, da’elgar?” Solas, who might or might not be really there, asks. “And what would you require of me?”

Too many things, apparently, Margo thinks, because pretending to yourself that you’re not stuck in emotional entanglement shit creek without a paddle isn’t a very effective way to get the proverbial canoe moving. “Distract me in other ways. Tell me about the Fade,” she asks instead.

He smiles, and perches on the side of the desk, next to the workstation. As she works, slowly, pulled taught by the tug of war between her mind and her body, he tells her of dwarven ruins, of long forgotten warriors and ancient battlefields. He tells her of elven clans beset by terrible curses, and of spirits wandering the shifting landscape, their very names forgotten. The images he conjures are overwhelmingly dark - every single one a story of desolation, ruin, and loss. Still, on a better day, she would be delighted at his penchant for a iambic meter. But with the hellish concoction coursing through her, she feels the cadence of his speech as her own heartbeat, a burn in her veins she does not have a name for.

And then, the antidote is done, and she drinks it right away, scorching herself in the process. She looks at her hallucinatory companion. “Thank you,” she says simply.

He smiles. “It was... a pleasure, little spirit. Until we meet again.” And then, with a reddish shimmer, he’s gone.

“Congratulations, apprentice.” Master Adan says. “You passed with flying colors.”

The Enchanter makes a noncommittal humph, and picks up the rest of the hellish potion. “We will be taking this now.”

“To dispose of safely,” Master Adan supplies, with a quick glance at the elven woman.

Margo looks between the pair. Sure you will, you pervy bastards. Right down the hatch.

And then she marches off to the attic, and collapses on the mattress. She’s asleep in under a minute. And mercifully, there are no dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by "spot the difference." Also by witherstock, which has one of the most hilarious codex entries, and has largely inspired the premise of this chapter. 
> 
> In case you were curious, a seven year old boy's urine is a thing in some traditions for detoxifying poisonous ingredients. As is the urine of a red-haired cow. I improvised from there.
> 
> Next up: Leliana (aka Torquemada)


	8. The Highest Thing that Man May Keep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo has her chat with Torquemada

During the first few moments of wakefulness, Margo has absolutely no idea where she is. She reaches over, expecting Mindy’s furry butt strategically parked on the pillow next to her, but her fingers encounter emptiness — neither cat butt, nor pillow. Only some kind of prickly texture that smells of hay, and, faintly, of some musky animal scent she can’t quite identify.

The past day comes back to her slowly, like something half-drowned drifting just below the surface of murky waters. The picture refuses to resolve into anything understandable, and her throat seizes with the acute anguish of  _ misplacement _ . Perhaps this is how shipwreck survivors might feel once they wake up, parched and sun-blistered, on alien shores.

Sitting up requires some vestibular exertion. Her borrowed body still doesn’t fit quite right — the field of peripheral vision seems entirely too wide, as if the spacing of her eyes allows for a wider angle of perception. In the semi-darkness of the apothecary, the colors are too bright, an oversaturation that skews towards jeweled tones, but loses crispness. She rubs her eyes, trying to get them to focus. An evolutionary trade-off for better night vision, perhaps? Of course, it might just be the effect of the night’s alchemical hangover. Too many toxic substances on short notice. Sorry, liver. At least, she presumes there is a liver. 

Margo uses the wall to stabilize herself, desperately wishing for a hot shower, or better yet, a long hot soak — or anything else that would reassert a sense of normalcy, however flimsy. At least the clothes aren’t too smelly yet, courtesy of Solas’s dry-cleaning spell. She doesn’t remember undressing. She tries to recall her last meal, but the thought is, at best, an abstraction. Instead, her stomach feels like it’s having an identity crisis about its role in the great digestive scheme of things. The pangs are perfectly recognizable as nausea, so that part works by and large the same way.

Well, what do you know, Minaeve’s chosen potion really did cause unpleasant gastric symptoms after all.

The memories of the previous night are… not fuzzy, exactly, but so entirely surreal that Margo has no idea where to start with processing them. For the sake of sanity — or what passes for it these days — it would behoove her to put the entire culsterfuck aside. She’ll deal with it later. It’ll be right there where she left it, and she has bigger fish to fry at the moment.

The most immediate fish being Torquemada.

Margo descends the rickety steps to the ground floor — maneuvering her body feels like trying to pilot the prototype of some finicky and not entirely stable apparatus, the kind that ends up in history textbooks as “the first attempt” at whatever new harebrained idea humanity came up with. The shop is still empty. The opaque glass in the window is dark. No sign of “first light” — or any light at all safe for the flicker of a torch moving around outside. 

She finds the note next to a stoppered bottle on the table. In addition to the mystery potion and missive, a clay carafe filled with a dark, bitter-smelling liquid and a plate of bread, cheese, and pickled vegetables are waiting for her, all covered with a questionable dish rag. Margo unfolds the note.

_ “Apprentice, _

_ Congratulations, again. Welcome to the ranks (officially).  _

_ Drink the draught — your liver will thank you for it. If you’re still alive by afternoon, come find Cullen and I for further instructions. _

_ ~A. _

_ PS: You did well for yourself, fledgling. I’ve seen Imshael’s Bargain really do a number on much more experienced candidates. Fun as it is to watch, I had hoped you’d manage to muddle through it, and you did. _

_ PPS: You’re going to want to puke your guts out this morning, but make sure you eat anyway.” _

Well, that confirms it. There is a liver.

She drinks the draught first. It tastes very pleasantly of verbena and hibiscus, and less pleasantly of rotten eggs. More importantly, it works as intended. By the time she manages to convince herself that the need to eat is not just a cultural construction and starts in on the cheese and bread, Margo is feeling more or less like her old self. Or new self. At least, the shimmery jeweled tones resolve into a more pedestrian pallette. 

She pours herself a cup of the still warm liquid from the carafe — while it doesn’t smell exactly like coffee, there is definitely an earthy, nutty aroma that might very well signal the presence of caffeine. 

The knock on the door makes her jump, and the next few moments are spent muttering profanities, and trying to mop up the spilled non-coffee with the dish rag. After she fails to open the door immediately, the knock repeats, more insistent.

“It’s me, Prickly. You presentable?”

Margo stares at the door for a few seconds before walking over and admitting her unusually early visitor inside. The storm has subsided, but not before delivering about three feet of snow. There is a Varric-sized tunnel in the snowbank in front of the apothecary.

“You must be freezing. Would you like some c-... something warm to drink?”

“I won’t say no, Prickly. Maker’s Balls, it’s cold.” Varric knocks the snow off his boots before proceeding inside. He settles on the chair vacated earlier by Enchanter Minaeve, props one ankle over a leather-clad knee, and unbuttons the top of his coat — the better to show off the chest hair, no doubt. Margo offers him a passably clean beaker, filling it up with the coffee substitute.

She takes the other chair across from him, and huddles around her cup, trying to soak up its warmth with her palms. The hearth fire is down to flickering embers. She wonders, in passing, whether some part of Thedas might be doing the sensible thing, and using clay stoves. From what she has seen of the houses in Haven, most seem not quite built for the weather — as if all built at the same time, and modeled for a warmer climate.

Varric, in the meantime, is no hurry to explain the reason behind his visit — he is content to simply sit, observe her, and sip his drink. 

“So. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Margo ventures when it becomes abundantly clear that he is waiting her out. 

“Catching you at a bad time?” He squints, an amused little spark in his amber eyes. “I hear you got an appointment with the Nightingale. Thought you could use an unwelcome tagalong — or, at least, someone to deliver a rallying speech before the event in question. See, Prickly, I’ve been on the pointy end of those talks, so I figured least I could do is give you a sense of how these tend to proceed.” The dwarf sounds sarcastic and dead serious all at the same time. 

“My guess would be, mostly poorly,” Margo offers.

“Yep. Emotional manipulation, mind games, threatening your loved ones, lectures about poor life choices, and, when all else fails, good old torture. The classic repertoire.”

Margo shuts her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. Not that she was expecting tea and cookies, but hearing what she can look forward to from an eyewitness is a whole new magnitude of unpleasant. “So. As the recipient of the aforementioned treatment. Do you think there’s anything I can do to make the whole experience… less life-threatening?”

Varric grins, and takes a big gulp of his non-coffee, helps himself to a pickled vegetable, and masticates thoughtfully. “As a matter of fact, Prickly, I do. Worst vice is advice, eh?” He brandishes the pickle for emphasis. “Take it from a professional storyteller. All other things being equal, best to tell the truth. Just decide which truth you don’t mind sharing.”

Margo considers this. The trouble is that she herself doesn’t have a very firm way of evaluating the “truthfulness” of any of this world’s propositions, in particular after last night’s debacles. Case in point, spirits, demons, and nocturnal visitors of the illusory persuasion who may or may not be familiar elves. And from there, all other claims to truth seem to suffer from a bad case of relativity. Besides, the chances that any revelation of her alien status would be received with more magnanimity than the tried and true “burn the witch” method are rather low. 

“Truth, though, is a tricky thing, isn’t it?” The dwarf gives her a curious look, so Margo forges on. “Can I ask you a rather random question?” 

“I love random questions, Prickly. They always make for the best stories.”

Great. “How can you tell if something is an illusion?” She pauses. Here is to hoping that he will simply attribute the vertiginous non sequitur to her alleged head trauma. “As in, how can you tell that something is actually real? Not only in your head, but actually the reflection of an objective reality? Like, the Fade, say? Is it real?”

Varric whistles between his teeth. “You know, asking a dwarf about the Fade is sort of like asking a blind man what color the sky is.”

He takes a sip from his cup.

Margo frowns. Now, why would that be? The logical conclusion is that dwarves don’t have access to the Fade — what does that mean, practically speaking? She tries to reroute her thoughts to the problem at hand. One thing at a time, and all that. “Let’s hypothetically say that you’re exposed to something that causes you to hallucinate. I’m trying to figure out whether the hallucinations are just in my head, or if they’ve got some grounding in truth.”

The dwarf examines her with his very unassumingly careful stare, and then nods slowly. “I don’t think there’s an easy answer to that. Let’s take a few different examples. Knew a guy once — real nug-humping dipbag, but I digress. Anyway, got ahold of a powerful artefact, the kind that makes you hear things. Sure enough, he went completely ballistic. Lots of slaughtering of innocents and such. Now, was it all in his head? Or was there something about the artifact that  _ wanted _ him to do these things?” Varric shrugs, lost in thought. “Honestly, Prickly, I don’t know. On the other hand, you have your run of the mill desire demon that feeds you happy thoughts until you’re pretty much nothing more than a drooling husk. And in the end, it always turns out to be a purple lady with a cone-shaped head and a truly impressive…” Varric gestures, in a bid to communicate which part of the cone-shaped lady impressed itself on his memory. “Anyway. Point is, that’s not what you see when you come across one of the bastards.”

Margo shivers, her forearms breaking out in sudden goosebumps. “A desire demon?”

“Never seen one of them? I mean, some have specific names. Mostly, though they tend to go with whatever’s in vogue with the clientele of, say, The Blooming Rose. Not to say that all the girls at the Rose are desire demons, though there was that one time…”

Margo decides that whatever kind of establishment The Blooming Rose is, it is unlikely to be a burger joint. 

“Wait…” The proverbial light bulb goes off… Or, rather, flickers on with a sputter — her capacity for critical thinking is not at its sharpest. Really, she should have put two and two together earlier. “So there are demons. And then there are spirits. Are they qualitatively analogous?”

Varric harrumphs. “You know, Prickly, you and Chuckles would really hit it off. He’s a sucker for a fancy turn of phrase too. And he likes to overthink everything. Anyway, that’s the golden nug question, right there. Depends on who you ask. If you want the Chantry version, then yeah, they’re all bad news, all determined to turn mages to blood magic and lead poor hapless Templars into temptation. If you want a more nuanced answer — again, hit up Chuckles. I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to deliver a lecture. Just don’t tell Curly I sent you, he’ll get his knickers in a twist. And then he’ll go tattle to the Seeker.” The dwarf sighs his resignation. “We’re going to be ass deep in apostates and Templars as it is, and I really don’t want another lecture on the dangers of moral relativism as we trudge through the mess in the Hinterlands.”

Why is it that every conversation with the dwarf seems to end with “go ask Solas?”

Varric, in the meantime, narrows his eyes at her. “How did we get to this topic anyway? Are you seeing weird shit too, in addition to memory loss?”

“Something like that.”

“Heh. How’s your memory? Anything come back?”

Margo nibbles on a piece of cheese as she thinks. Eventually, she shrugs. “Actually, yes. Some of it.”

“Well, let’s hope whatever you got makes Nightingale happy. And on that note… You ready for the chopping block?”

Questionable metaphors aside, she supposes there’s no point in delaying the inevitable, so Margo picks up the rest of the antidote from the previous night, and she downs the cold liquid with a disgusted shudder. Sorry, liver.

They walk out of the apothecary and make their way towards the temple. The sky is overcast, but the early morning gloom seems to suggest that somewhere, in a better world, the sun is thinking of making an appearance. Here is to hoping that “first light” is not designed to be an exact description.

The camp is oddly lively already. Workers — most of them elves — bustle about, carrying crates and sacks. Soldiers, their faces still soft with sleep, trail down towards the training grounds.

“Animated this morning,” Margo remarks mostly to herself.

“Like the Gallows on Refugee Referral day. That’s the thing, Prickly. We’re slated to leave mid-morning.” The dwarf’s voice is not particularly jovial.

“You’re also of the persuasion that this is a bad idea?”

Varric sighs. “I just have a bad feeling about this. And the thing is, I’m usually right about these things.”

They stop a few yards from the Spymaster’s tent. “Listen, in case shit goes tits up for either of us…”

She pivots to face the dwarf, and sure enough, there is no trace of his usual humor. He looks like someone who’s seen too many things go “tits up” in his lifetime, and is proper sick of it.

“You want me to relay any sort of message? I know you and Evie hit it off. Something tells me the kid would feel better with a rousing speech in person, but failing that, do you want me to pass your warm regards?”

Margo forces a smile. “Tell her to not get killed. And to stay away from fruity drinks.” She hesitates. “And tell her she can do this.”

He grins at her. “That, I can do, Prickly. Don’t worry, won’t let any bad sorts get anywhere near her while I’m around, or they’ll have a nice little chat with Bianca’s business end. Besides, the Seeker is enough of a fun repellant in her own right, can’t imagine there’ll be too many amorous suitors with her around. Anything else? How about Chuckles, any messages for him?”

She can’t help but wonder why he’s asking. But of course, she has a suspicion that Varric notices a whole lot more than he lets on. “Just…” What the hell can she actually say? “Tell him that next time he suggests I make a formula that requires druffalo piss — or any other kind of bodily fluid — I’m going to send him to collect it.”

Varric guffaws. “That, Prickly, I will relay, just to see the expression on his face.”

She considers him for a few seconds. “Varric, stay safe. All of you. I still owe you an ale, remember?”

“Oh, don’t worry. I never forget.” He claps her on the shoulder. “See you on the other side.”

And with this, he turns around, and starts trudging down the slope. Margo squashes the feeling that she’s not going to see any of them again with a firm mental whack, and covers the distance to the tent.

As it turns out, Torquemada is already waiting, once again contemplating her maps. Does she ever get cold? Scratch that, does she ever sleep? Or eat? Or do anything besides being quietly menacing?

“Ah, good of you to come in such a timely fashion, agent. Shall we?”

Margo nods, and follows the woman towards the temple. They walk in silence into the structure’s foyer, and for a few seconds Margo gawks at the soaring columns and beautiful masonry. The building is truly majestic, and on a better day she would love to get a sense of its layout to glean the underpinning symbolism of its architecture.

“This way,” Torquemada directs, down a narrow stone staircase into what is either a crypt, or a dungeon, or a combination of the two. Torquemada, for her part, keeps herself just a few feet behind, and Margo has to contend with the unnerving feeling that at any point she might get shoved down the stairs.

She wonders briefly at the absence of guards. Either the spymaster is confident that Margo will not try anything funny, or that any attempt at resistance can be easily squashed.

They make it down to a room with a desk, two chairs, and something that looks a whole lot like a rack of primitive dentistry instruments, although Margo is reasonably certain that their actual purpose is not to mend the results of poor dental hygiene.

“Please,” the Spymaster offers. “Do sit.”

The chair looks unassuming enough. Margo sits.

“Do not let our lack of escort deceive you, my agents are everywhere in the building. If you try to resist, you will not get much further than the confines of this room,” Torquemada informs her in a light conversational tone.

As if to prove the point, an elf with a large burn scar across one cheek partially obscured by an oversized green hood materializes from behind a column — although the effect is more like he’s just risen out of primordial emptiness — and snaps a pair of manacles on Margo’s wrists before she can even try to put up any sort of protest.

Torquemada brings a neat little leather case from the dentistry rack, unfolding it on the table with pedantic meticulousness. Predictably, its contents do not inspire optimism.

“I have no taste for this sort of thing, agent,” the spymaster declares, and by the tone of her voice, Margo actually believes her. This is all business, no pleasure. “So I am hoping we can avoid any unnecessary unpleasantness, and keep the conversation civil. And to this end…”

Margo watches, mesmerized, as the spymaster extracts a needle from the case, and proceeds to dip it into a narrow vial of murky liquid. With any luck, it’s some kind of disinfectant solution, because otherwise Margo really can’t recall when her last tetanus booster was.

“Hold out your hand, please.”

“May I ask what this is?” Margo manages, because asking an excessive amount of technical questions about unpleasant procedures is how she’s always dealt with doctors’ appointments and other such encounters. Not that she’s had experience with outright torture before…

“Ah, of course. I forget that you are now pursuing alchemy. This is something that was developed by the Antivan Crows, specifically for interrogating assassins that are suspected of going rogue. The recipe is a trade secret, you understand, but I can tell you a little bit about the effects, if you’re interested.”

Assassins gone rogue? Oh dear ill-tempered local deity…

“By all means,” Margo grits through her teeth, which she’s desperately trying to keep from chattering uncontrollably.

Torquemada smiles pleasantly. “Here.” Before Margo can react, the redhead — should ask her for some urine too — jabs the needle into the tip of Margo’s finger. The prick is sharp, but no worse than getting a blood sample.

“Good. Now, while it’s taking effect… The reason we use this now is that anything administered orally is too easily counteracted with something like Andraste’s Promise or any other readily available antidote. You know, it’s quite amusing, even something as simple as charcoal can offset a lot of effects. And we wouldn’t want that.”

Is she talking about activated carbon? They have activated carbon in Thedas? Margo shakes her head. Of course they do.

And of course, they would have anticipated any commonly available antidote.

“And this particular formula has the advantage of doing a lot of the work that would be traditionally done by a specialist without resorting to more… intensive procedures. This profession can be difficult on people.”

Right. Torturers get burned out. Tragic, that. Maybe they have a good union.

“In any case, this is a simple interrogation formula. It produces extremely uncomfortable effects when a suspect tries to lie. This, in turn, leads to two results. First, that your body will quickly dissuade you from lying, and second, that lies are easily noticeable based on body language, such that even an untrained interrogator can usually get a good read on the situation.”

Lecture delivered, Torquemada proceeds to sit on the other side of the desk.

“Any questions?”

“How long do the effects last?” Margo asks, and at this point, something must be happening, because she is feeling oddly relaxed.

“An hour or two at most. That is usually more than enough time.”

Margo nods. She is a bit dismayed to find herself giving Torquemada a friendly smile. Because really, the spymaster is very helpful in explaining all this, and it’s nice that she’s taken the time…

Uh-oh.

“Good. It looks like we can start any time. So, we will proceed as follows. I will ask you questions, and you will answer them. Really, that is all there is to this. And when we’re done… Well. Let us not get ahead of ourselves. Shall we?”

Margo nods again.

“What happened to your patrol?”

Well, that part, at least, is easy. “They were killed.” She looks for a change in her general physical state, but there isn’t one. Well, maybe a slight sense of accomplishment at a job well done.

“Indeed they were. Did you kill them?”

“No.” Same effects. She can do this.

“Good. Did you know they would get slaughtered?”

“No.” So far so good.

“Were they killed by the Qunari?”

“No.” She can totally do this.

“Do you know who?”

“Yes. Tevinter mages.”

This seems to give Torquemada some food for thought, because the redhead hesitates for a few moments, a slight frown on her face. While she’s deliberating with herself, Margo finds that her hands have become very sensitive, and she’s obsessively fiddling with a sharp metal snag that protrudes from one of her manacles. It’s a twist in the metal that almost feels like the tip of a dull pair of scissors. Maybe someone tried to break free, and didn’t quite manage the job, but mangled the manacles in the process. Right. Just like the Inquisition to use second-hand restraints.

Her hands are in her lap, and she hopes that Torquemada doesn’t notice and immediately assume that she’s picking a lock (as if she could), and not just neurotically fiddling with the cuffs. 

“What were you doing when the patrol was attacked?”

Ah. And that’s where the proverbial tires hit the road. Margo works against the compulsion to blurt out that she was boinking a guy in robes — and then supply some more helpful details, like the fact that the mage was quite attractive and very good at it, but not quite her type. Or that she’s not entirely sure what to make of the fact that the only reason she knows this is because Solas had reconstructed the memory for her. And that the whole thing led to a pretty awkward thing between them that she’s been trying not to consider too closely because she’s pretty sure the experience wasn’t altogether unpleasant for her, or for him either, despite the fact that it really should have been, and what does that mean, exactly? Or that, really, the only reason she’s even had to do this is because _ I come in peace, take me to your leader _ , and that she really should have made use of the university’s discount for getting a regular therapist appointment, but it’s too late now…

Margo brings the runaway thought train to a screeching halt before it completely derails. “I was occupied elsewhere,” she says instead, and then she is slammed with a sense of profound, soul-sucking failure.

Torquemada smiles, and there’s really nothing friendly about it this time. “So I gather. Doing what, precisely?”

And at that point, Margo realizes just how much shit she’s in. At least she understands the mechanism now. It’s a simple behaviorist principle: a biochemical reward for running off at the mouth, and a punishment for even so much as withholding irrelevant details. Let alone lying — she can’t imagine the sort of psychological whiplash that outright lying would produce. And indeed, the interrogator doesn’t have to lift a finger. Her own body is, once again, her worst enemy. 

It is really becoming a bad habit. 

“Having sex,” she finally says. Because, really, that’s better than the expanded alternative.

Torquemada raises a quizzical eyebrow. “Ah. And who with, pray tell?”

Swallowing another nascent tirade on the technical ambiguities required to provide an accurate answer to this question, Margo limits her answer to “a mage.” And actually gets a nice warm and fuzzy reward, apparently quite visible on her face, if Torquemada’s surprised expression is anything to go by. If she really wanted to make the most of this, she’d have to say “two mages” — as the most formally accurate response. Though that might give Torquemada the wrong sort of idea…

“Interesting.” The Spymaster interlaces her fingers, but there is something speculative about her gaze. As if this was not precisely what she had expected. Or rather, as if she did not expect Margo to fess up quite so easily. Well, sorry to disappoint…

“A Tevinter mage, by chance?”

“Yes.” No reward or punishment for that one.

Torquemada considers this newly acquired information. “That you will admit this with such ease tells me one of two things. You are rightfully blaming yourself for your unforgivable dalliance with an enemy, and are in fact looking for situations that would most effectively end you. This is consistent with you defying orders, and with your choice to participate in the battle at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. And with your reckless behavior there, which, I should remind you, I witnessed first-hand. If this is the case, I can assure you that I will oblige your desire to die at the end of this conversation.”

Margo swallows the bile rising in her throat. 

Torquemada pauses, steeples her fingers, and props her chin on top of them — an incongruously casual gesture. “Alternatively, you are not embarrassed by this at all. If so, then the only possible explanation is that you were using sex to try to gain an advantage — perhaps looking to gather information on the Tevinter presence on the Coast. This, of course, would be mostly in the interest of the Qunari, which brings me to my next question. Were you spying on Tevinter?”

Margo looks at Torquemada. All she can see, once again, is a grinning skull. This is it, then. The end of the road. If she says “yes,” she’ll get slammed with negative biochemical feedback, because let’s face it, Maile was not spying on anyone. She just... really had a thing for this particular robed fuckwit. So it will be a lie, and the spymaster will know.

And if she says no, then she is done.

In a split second decision, Margo jams the sharp protrusion from her manacle into the webbing between her thumb and forefinger, hoping that she can hit the pressure point without looking.

The pain is blinding. Her skin explodes in goosebumps, and tears spring to her eyes. “No,” she says through the pain, and not even the inbuilt reward mechanism of the truth serum can override her body’s shocked reaction.

Torquemada’s eyebrows shoot up. “I see,” she says and length. “So. Spying on Tevinter, but not in an official capacity. Certainly not at our behest, anyway. Are you with the Ben Hassrath?”

What happens if she says no when she doesn’t know the answer? When, in fact, she does not understand the question? Would her body interpret the statement as a lie?

“Yes,” she says, and is crushed by a wave of bleak hopelessness. So, yes. For all intents and purposes, a failure to respond accurately is always classified as a lie.

At this point Torquemada is looking genuinely confused. And then, some gear grinds into place, because the spymaster actually beams at her. “Of course. Of course, I should have thought of this sooner. Charter has always had a … soft spot for some of her girls. You were with her for a very long time, comparatively speaking. Perhaps you did not reciprocate and she sent you on a little vigilante mission above your paygrade and skill. Or perhaps you did reciprocate, and she promoted you before you were ready. Yet another reminder that our sentiments can blind us… but this does put things in a new light. And the Tevinter mage, presumably, beat you to the punch, as it were.” Torquemada stands up, and starts pacing. “Which can happen to the best of us, in this game. Much of this is luck and timing.” For a flicker of a second the spymaster almost looks like a reasonable person. It doesn’t last long. “And of course, your reticence to come forward… yes. Whatever happened between you and Charter, you must still be loyal to her. This is the woman who trained you. Your loyalty to her would precede any loyalty you might have for the Inquisition…” 

Vassal of my vassal is not my vassal. Thank you, medieval code of honor.

Of course, this will still likely end in her throat being slit. Margo wishes she’d had the time to give Evie that pep talk. And have a beer with Varric. And learn how to process lyrium. And... Yes, alright. The elf. She's not sure what she wants to do with him, exactly, but being out of time precludes the possibility of ever answering that question.

In the meantime, Torquemada seems to come to a decision. “One more question, agent. Do you feel responsible for the death of your patrol?”

Oh, Unspecified Creator Deity’s Hairy Scrotum, is that a trick question?

“Yes,” she says. And it’s not a lie. Maile did feel responsible. Just for a different set of reasons. And she, Margo, feels bad for them. And bad for taking over Maile's body as the woman launched herself on a suicide mission. And kind of bad for having survived in her stead.

Her body doesn’t react.

This, apparently, seems to satisfy the spymaster.

“Under typical circumstances, I would not let this go, agent. But you have potential, and these are not typical circumstances.” She fixes Margo with her cool gaze. “You are an elf. It could not have been easy to simulate intimacy with this sort of opponent, on the slim chance that this might lend a strategic advantage. Not if we consider the history of your two people. No matter what they say, this part of the Game does not come readily for a woman. It takes true steel.” And at that moment, something awfully close to sympathy — if not compassion — flickers in the spymaster’s eyes.

Does this mean she is not going to get killed in some dank crypt?

“Very well. You will immediately cease all contacts with Charter, and you will have to pledge an oath of loyalty to me, directly. Or better yet, to the Inquisition. Do not think that I will hesitate to eliminate you at the first sign of a misstep. Do you understand me?” 

Margo nods, though she really isn’t sure what she’s nodding to at this point. 

“We will do this right now.”

The spymaster stands, and approaches Margo’s chair.

And then, her hands are no longer restrained.

“Repeat after me.”

And so, she repeats the oath that the spymaster enunciates to her, entirely unable to understand, let alone process its words.

“You are free to go, agent. Report to Cullen for your next assignment.” 

As Margo stands up, on completely rubbery legs, and makes her way towards the stairs, Torquemada calls after her. 

“I might make use of your particular talents and willingness to employ them at a later date. No sense in wasting potential that is already there.”

Oh yay. This just keeps getting better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by verbena, classically used against insomnia, anxiety, women health issues, and as a liver tonic. In other words, pretty much exactly what poor Margo needs.


	9. Field Season

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo weaponizes snowballs, glimpses a Warden, discovers the Hinterlands, and experiences an unpleasant revelation.

By the time Margo finds Commander Rutherford, Haven feels vacant. She estimates that about a third of the troops are missing. She passes by the apothecary on her way down to the training grounds, and she is forced to walk by Solas’s hut. The door is closed. She squashes the impulse to knock, and keeps on walking.

The tavern is emptied out too. The only patrons are a bard, who isn’t even pretending to sing, and a couple of older soldiers, grizzled and scarred, playing some interminable game of cards and lazily sipping their ale. Margo fishes around in her pocket, and produces a few coppers. Flissa, the barmaid, sets her up with some meaty porridge and watery beer.

Once the pragmatics of feeding the body are dealt with, Margo makes her way towards the tents. The sparring grounds are depopulated as well, only the jagged crunch of melted then refrozen footprints remains of the rink’s habitual occupants. She spots Cullen and Adan, seated on a pair of upturned barrels next to a particularly badly damaged log dummy. Margo stuffs her hands deep into her pockets and walks over. Does Haven ever warm up?

“Reporting for duty,” she announces brightly. She gets a toothy grin from Adan and a somewhat curt nod from the commander. Rutherford looks distracted and fidgety. His tawny eyes are sunken into purplish sockets, and she notices a burst of capillaries webbing over both cheekbones.

Still, when he speaks, it is with fastidious politeness. “Glad to have you with us, agent.” If he had any doubt that Margo would make it out of her little interview with Torquemada in one piece, he doesn’t let on.

“You can just call me Margo,” she offers.

“Yes. Margo,” he acknowledges. “I see the Nightingale is sticking with ‘M’s for you. I suppose it makes it easier to remember.”

Margo smiles noncommittally. At least he’s taking her claims about her new codename at face value. She takes the opportunity to examine the military fellow more closely. In this light, the resemblance to Jake is less obvious — and she suddenly realizes that the thing that makes the two look so similar is not so much the physical appearance as the exhausted, threadbare look. She has another pang of anxiety at the thought. Her brother didn’t deserve this shit either. Mourning the death — or, minimally, the disappearance — of yet another loved one. Even if Jake did always have an oddly cavalier attitude to loss — as if he expected it, more surprised when it didn’t happen than when it did. What had he said when Baba passed? “There are other worlds than these, Margo.” At the time, she had rolled her eyes and brought the conversation to an abrupt end with some lame excuse about having to grade papers. It had sounded like some sort of bullshit New Age dictum, as vapid as it was unhelpful.

“You ready to get some work done, apprentice?” Adan asks, still grinning. “Your patrol is leaving tomorrow morning." 

“One moment, Adan. We can’t neglect her battle skills. I’m not sending out another underprepared operative.” Cullen looks up at her with a vaguely apologetic expression. “No offense, agent. Uh… Margo.”

Margo returns the smile. “None taken. If Master Adan can spare me for a couple of hours, a refresher course sounds good.”

After that, she’s sent off to Master Harritt for a proper set of armor. The blacksmith sizes her up with a quick critical look, and he sends off one of his apprentices to rummage in the back of the smithy for ready-made pieces. Really, she shouldn’t feel so damn giddy at the results, but the armor is amazing. Lightweight, but sturdy, it fits her comfortably, and the leather has a soft, creamy consistency that makes you want to pet it. “Nugskin,” Harritt explains, nodding at his handiwork with obvious approval. “Too light for most of our frontline troops, but I always keep some spares on hand for you sneaky, stabby types.” He smiles into his mustache. “Cheap, too. Can’t beat it.”

After that, it’s off to find the commander again. She expects to be foisted off on one of the remaining soldiers — perhaps the alarmingly steely Ser Lysette whom she spots by one of the tents — but Cullen makes some noise about needing the exercise this morning, and chooses to run her through a few drills himself. Margo doesn’t get the chance to reflect on this strange subversion of hierarchy — though perhaps the commander likes to mingle with the common troops to make himself appear more approachable. Before she knows it, he has her running through various routines. He is a reasonably patient teacher — or, rather, a distracted one — which is a good thing, because she is a thoroughly obtuse pupil.

“You’re overthinking it,” he finally breathes out, both of them winded and covered in freezing slush. Margo gets the footwork right off, but when it comes to attacking, especially with the daggers, she freezes and pulls her punches. She relies on her body to guide her through the steps — and while she gets the whole avoid opponent at all costs part, the rest of the “sneaky, stabby” stuff is an uphill battle. Cullen spends more time chasing her around the rink than engaging in actual sparring. 

“It’ll come back to you with practice. The movements are all there. But…” He seems to hesitate, and Margo decides that he’s looking for a way to phrase his criticism constructively. “How are you with the bow? You might find ranged weapons easier for now, until your instincts return.”

“You aim and pull the string, right?”

He chuckles. “That’s the gist of it. What about your throwing hand?”

Hell if she knows. So they try that next, and as it turns out, she can lob things well enough — courtesy of long summers spent playing vegetable wars with the village kids, stealing the neighbors’ tomatoes and other projectile-ready produce, and winters where every school day would be followed by a merciless snowball fight to the death, or, at least, to first tears. As long as there’s a degree of separation between Margo and her target, the in-built “do no harm” mechanism doesn’t seem to kick in.

“Adan, set her up with grenades,” Cullen orders, cleaning another snowball out of his hair. By this point, Margo’s grinning deviously. The commander gives her — and the quickly solidifying snowball she’s packing in her hands — a slightly cross look. “Start with a basic set.”

Margo spends the afternoon in the apothecary, preparing small, sturdy flasks of something flammable. Adan is so pleased with this new turn of events — and with the opportunity to produce things that will blow up on impact — that he’s practically dancing around. The light outside wanes, and they ignite the braziers to get enough illumination for their work.

“All right, apprentice. This is where the fun and games end. You need to learn how to work with lyrium. We need to mix magica potions to take with your team tomorrow.”

Margo looks at him with interest — because even when he was working with the highly volatile oil-like stuff they’ve been using for grenades, none of the awed reverence was there. “So, what is it, exactly? A mineral? An oil?”

Adan simply shakes his head. “It’s what makes the world go ‘round, fledgling.”

As they set up, he tells her about lyrium mining, and about the ways in which dwarves have been processing it for centuries — most of it a tightly guarded trade secret. About the substance’s addictiveness and detrimental long-term effects. From what Margo can glean, it’s both a mineral and more than a mineral. In the parameters of her own world, it’s petroleum and morphine and lithium all rolled into one. A truly classical example of Plato’s pharmacon — at once poison and remedy, boon and sacrifice. 

Adan mentions the Chantry and its tight control over the lyrium trade, and Margo is finding herself nodding vigorously when she realizes that this is their way of keeping Templars — who are, from what she can understand, the local religious organization’s military arm — on a short leash. And she learns about the Circles, and how mages are branded with the stuff if they step out of line. It is as if this substance is the lynchpin of this entire world, the heartbeat at the center of its many complicated arrangements.

So by the time they are donning gloves and tying on face masks, she has developed a healthy reverence for the stuff. Even when it turns out that the potion making itself is actually rather simple — take granulated processed lyrium (which, to Margo, looks a whole lot like blue Miracle-Gro water crystals), heat it in a hermetic cast-iron capsule, and then dunk the whole thing into an ice bucket to break the crystalline structure, then mix into an infusion of what else but elfroot and some fungus — she still feels like she just learned one of alchemy’s greatest secrets. Like, say, making mercury ash.

“We don’t granulate it ourselves, I gather?” Margo asks, once they have a neat little row of potions aligned on a shelf specially freed up for the purpose. At this point, several hours of work into it, they are both sweaty, sooty, and cranky.

“Makers’ Balls, fledgling, of course not! Even not all dwarves are able to process this stuff.”

Margo nods. It would be interesting to follow the commodity chain, though, and she finds herself daydreaming about mapping the lyrium trade against the history of Thedas’s political conflicts.

After everything is done, Adan sends her to the back of the temple, where a makeshift bath house has been set up to keep Haven’s populace reasonably clean. 

“Make sure you scrub. The particles get everywhere. You don’t want that stuff to absorb,” he cautions.

He doesn’t have to tell her twice.

She makes her way up the hill. The feeling of emptiness is eerie — Haven feels like a ghost town, or some kind of remote monastic outpost for particularly misanthropic ascetics. By the time she makes it to the bath house — a simple, surprisingly clean and well-heated log cabin with one steam room, another one with large wooden vats that she supposes are bathtubs, and a common area for washing and mending clothes, the camp seems frozen in time. 

The bath house, on the other hand, turns out to be inhabited. She surmises that this is the women’s shift. There are six or seven women in there already, with one or two familiar faces. Margo collects a threadbare towel from a grumpy elf who charges her two coppers for it. She sets herself up on a bench, and begins to peel off her clothes. None of the women seem to be particularly shy about nudity, so Margo shrugs, and does as in Rome. She opts for the steam room instead of the questionably clean bathtubs. The place smells strongly of pine, wood smoke, and caustic lye soap.

She has a companion in the sauna space. The other woman is Varric-short, as in  _ Homo Dwarvicus _ of some kind, with an elaborate hairdo that she is trying to pry apart.

When she looks up at Margo, the dwarven woman’s face breaks into a grin.

“Hey! You actually really made it!”

Oh great.  _ Now _ someone recognizes her. “I only sort of did,” Margo offers tentatively. “I got pretty severely contused and…”

“I know, I know. Memory loss, they’ve told us. I’m Lace Harding, in case you forgot. You might not remember, but thanks for the social tips — you’ve been with Charter much longer, obviously, and I appreciate all the advice when she recruited me.” Hair finally managed, the dwarf takes a chunk of soap and a small bucket, and she begins to scrub herself with enthusiasm. 

Margo decides to follow her example.

“I’m sorry about your patrol. There’s been some odd... rumor about what happened, but I’m personally glad you made it out alive.”

Great. Because Margo’s life was not sufficiently complicated without “odd rumors.” Instead she nods, and smiles through the stinging soap. “Thank you. You’re not out scouting with Charter?” 

Does she remember this right? Charter is supposed to be gone for two weeks, doing whatever it is that Charter does.

“Nope. I’m better suited to the Hinterlands, since I grew up there. In fact, I just came in for the day to collect you, after we got the Herald all set up and on her way. You and I head out tomorrow, bright and early. I’m glad you were on the roster — the others… Well. We’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel this time around.”

Margo tries to get soap out of her hair. It’s the first time she’s had her host’s — well, Ok, maybe she can start thinking of it as her hair by this point — unbraided, and it’s a long and unmanageable mess. Next time she comes across a pair of scissors…

“What do you mean?” she asks, trying to rake the tangles out with her fingers.

“I don’t so much mind the twins. Jan’s a prick, of course, but when he’s not trying to climb into your breeches, he’s at least competent, for a disowned Orlesian lordling, anyway. But Marek and Dylant have shit for brains. And I’ve known two-bit mercs with more integrity.”

Margo makes a face. That must be Tweedledee and Tweedledum. “Chauvinistic nug-humping dipbags,” Margo offers, paraphrasing Varric. “What’s not to like?”

Harding snorts. “Couldn’t have put it better myself.”

She listens as Harding describes the situation in the Hinterlands, and the more Margo hears about it, the more the whole thing sounds like the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. Not necessarily their mission, which is, relatively speaking, a fairly straightforward one. Go find some herbs. Stuff herbs in sack. Send missive to Cullen with location of whatever herbs you didn’t have room for. Set up campsite. Mix some potions.

It’s the part where Evie and the others have to cut their way through an active war zone to get to this clergy woman — whose name is apparently Mother Giselle — and who may or may not agree to come along, or help at all.

Body clean, small clothes washed and dried, and hair more or less detangled and re-braided (into a much less complicated arrangement), Margo makes her way back to the apothecary. There’s another plate of food for her — apparently, Master Adan has noticed her tendency to skip meals, and has taken it upon himself to not let his wayward pupil starve to death. After she’s done with the meal, she chews on a piece of astringent bark — hopefully not toxic — in an effort to clean her teeth. 

She doesn’t remember falling asleep. And once again, no dreams trouble her.

***

They set out the next morning. Her team consists of Bad News — or rather Jan Bordelon, rather fortuitously named, considering his lecherous ways — the Tweedles, and the Twins, who turn out to be two very scarred, very scary wardrobe-sized blokes with a Scottish brogue so thick you could slather it on toast. 

The Twins, Margo decides, are the best thing since sliced bread. As Tweedledum starts on his misogynist speciest needling sometime by mid-morning, one of the two men — either Sheldon or Shelby, she’s not sure which is which — emits a long string of ear-curling obscenities about the moral character of Tweedle’s mother, and then proceeds to sock the loudmouth in the ear with a cannonball-sized fist. As it turns out, the Twins were adopted by a couple of wealthy dwarven merchants, and their nurse-maid was an elven woman. After that, there are no more commentaries about ears, asses, tits, or any specific species’ willingness to do it for three coppers and a bowl of mashed turnips.

As they travel down the mountain and along the valley, the climate changes radically, and by evening they are sweaty and peeling off as many layers of armor as is safe. They manage to avoid trouble — which surprises Margo quite a bit, based on Harding’s stories — but the scout mentions that the detour allows them to skirt most of the dangerous areas. The first few times they camp, Margo is so exhausted from the punishing pace of their travels that she falls asleep the second her head hits the bedroll. 

On the fourth day, they stop for the night next to the expanse of a lake, the evening breeze blowing pleasantly cool air off the water. Margo wanders along the pebbly shore, and discovers that the place is overgrown with blood lotus. Since the Tweedles are managing the campfire, the Twins are setting up tents, and Harding is off to hunt for dinner, she decides to recruit Jan for some herb collection. He stretches demonstratively from his task of chopping wood, showing off broad, tanned shoulders and a trim waste, and follows along happily enough, a smirk on his lips.

Bad News’s amorous enthusiasm gets somewhat dampened by the chore of stuffing plants in a sack. “So,” he trails, sometimes after the third burlap bag is filled with reeds. “Got anyone to warm your bedroll at night?”

Yep. One-track mind, that one.

Margo tells him to fuck off. He laughs fairly goodnaturedly. “Tsk, tsk. Shame to waste such beauty, lass. Wouldn’t want to see you… ahm.. Wilt on the vine, hmm? Let me know when you change your mind, lovely.”

“You’ll be the first to know,” Margo grumbles, and then they both freeze. They’ve rounded a bend in the shoreline, and there is movement in the small ravine ahead. Jan docks behind a boulder, and Margo follows him, with a brief lag. What the hell is that thing? For a second, she could have sworn she saw a kind of orange, glowing goat.

Further scrutiny reveals that it’s a couple of unaccommodating looking fellas with bows and very anonymizing head-gear. The kind of head-gear you’d want to use if you would rather that the travelers you’re robbing not identify you in a line-up later.

She is about to ask Bad News whether they should sneak back to get reinforcements when a commotion draws their attention, and they both peek out from behind their shelter to get a better look.

A small group of men — or, boys, really — burst forth from behind a fjord, and charge at the two presumed brigands with screams that are probably meant to be awe-inspiring, but come off as rather the opposite. But that’s not what has Margo gawking. They are led by what appears to be a very heavily armored bear. Except said bear is also brandishing a sword and a shield, and is moving with distinctly non-bear like lethal speed. 

The boys mostly provide vocal accompaniment, but the bear is all business. He knocks one of the archers off his feet with a shield strike. Before brigand number one gets a chance to so much as draw his bow, let alone fire, the bear pivots around with a promptness that defies the basic laws of physics, and lops the head of brigand number two — now charging at his ursine assailant with a dagger — clean off his shoulders. Then the dread bear turns around again — all part of the same fluid movement — and plants his sword in the supine shape of brigand number one. As he does, his armor catches the waning evening light, and Margo notices a strange design on his breastplate — something with wings, she thinks.

“Andraste’s Blessed Knickers, that’s a Grey Warden,” Jan whispers next to her. By his tone, he might as well have said “Purple Unicorn.”

Margo squints against the glare of the setting sun, trying to see what this apparently mythical creature looks like. Maybe Grey Wardens are some kind of werebear species? But… no. From this angle, the bloke looks human enough. It’s just that he has truly spectacular facial hair. And, based on his size, he might even give the Twins a run for their money.

Carnage all done with, the mysterious warrior trails back to the group of boys, who are chittering excitedly at each other. She can’t hear what he’s trying to impart on his small flock of followers, but she suspects it’s some kind of pep talk. And then, before they can really do anything about it, he gathers his things and marches away towards the hills.

Margo shoots Jan a confused look. “What do you figure he’s doing?” Really, unless this is some kind of performance art…

Bad News shrugs. “Recruiting, I guess. Can’t see what else a Warden would be doing in this region. Either way, Harding needs to know about it. Best notify headquarters.”

They trail back to the camp — burlap sacks in tow. By the time they make it back, Scout Harding has returned, and is gutting something that looks like a goat, or a ram.

“A Grey Warden. Are you sure?” she asks — at least twice — after they relay their intel. “I’ll contact the spymaster.” The small woman whistles, and a raven-like bird with some kind of reddish plumage around its throat — alights on her outstretched hand.

Dinner finished, the Twins and the Tweedles start a game of cards — something called Wicked Grace, which, from what Margo can surmise, is somewhere in between poker and bridge. Margo decides to beg off.

“Aren’t you cold, lovely? Want some company?” Jan tries again. 

“No.”

“Ah, well. Next time, then.”

She’s asleep almost as soon as she curls into her bedroll.

When she opens her eyes, Margo realizes immediately that she is dreaming. The chartreuse quality of the light reminds her too much of that first night with Brother Rufus’s thrice-bedamned manuscript. But the landscape is not the non-Euclidean mind-bending horror of her transuniversal travel, but something much more familiar. A soft, fragrant, quiet field of tall summer grasses, speckled with bright splashes of color — poppies and knapweed, yarrow and chamomile…

She turns around, and there, next to her, is her Baba, digging up an early-purple orchid with a neat little rake, and gently cleaning the clumps of earth from the bulb.

“Ah, my soul, you have finally come,” Baba comments without lifting her head from her work.

Margo doesn’t dare to move, lest the vision dissipates. She extends her hand tentatively, and puts it on Baba’s forearm. It’s solid. And then tears well up in her eyes, and she throws her arms around the old woman and nestles up into her embrace with a relieved hiccupy sob.

“Shh,  _ lelkem _ . Do not fret. There’s no helping what’s done.” 

They sit like that for a few moments. Baba gently brushes Margo's hair with her earth-covered fingers.

“Baba, I think I got lost,” Margo finally manages.

Her grandmother turns, her slate grey eyes mild. “You can’t find yourself without getting a little lost on the way, my heart. ”The old woman’s face crinkles into a sad smile. “But you’re not here for your old Baba, are you my little thistle? You’re here for the wolfling.”

Margo frowns, but in the logic of the dream, Baba’s words, however nonsensical, ring true, a truth she feels down to her very bones.

“I don’t understand,” Margo pleads.

Baba chuckles. “All the other children, they always wanted the treats. The juicy currants, and the sweet frost apples, and the candied cloudberries. But you, I could never keep you away from the bitter roots.” She cackles softly, entertained by the memory. “There you’d sit, gnawing at the darn things — who knows where you’d even find them — your little face all puckered up with the taste of it. But you’d just keep at it. Stubborn little thistle.”

The old woman’s expression turns serious, and she tucks a stray salt and pepper lock under her kerchief. “Fate’s not a dog, child, you can’t chase it away with a stick.” And there is steel in Baba’s voice, just as Margo remembers it. Baba rarely scolded, but never coddled. 

“Baba, help me find my way. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Wish that I could, my soul.” The old woman gets up, tucks the bulb into a pocket, and brushes twigs and leaves off her apron. “If you want to see him, best go soon. There’s not much time left.”

And with that, Baba scoops her into a last hug, plants a kiss on Margo’s forehead — licorice and lemon balm and bitter wormwood, and home as nothing else will ever be — and vanishes into thin air.

Margo looks around, trying, and failing, to keep the tears at bay. She begins to walk down the field’s gentle slope, and as she does, the grass seems to dry out and fade away, and soon she is walking through a thin dusting of snow. The air turns dry and bitter cold, and before long, she is shivering.

There is a copse of short craggy trees, gnarled with the elements, and she trudges towards it, hoping at this point that she would wake up already, because she doesn’t need to also dream of cold when there’s plenty of that when she’s awake.

She turns her head, and freezes. She is no longer alone.

“Is this your dream?” she asks the familiar elf. “Or mine?”

“It is difficult to say.” Solas looks at the sky, a small smile on his face, and then turns his gaze towards her. “Somewhere halfway, I would imagine. I am glad you found your way here. And that you are in one piece.”

“Are you all right? The four of you?” She tries to keep her voice neutral, but doesn’t quite manage.

His expression turns troubled. “We are alive, for now. Though for how long, I cannot say.”

“Did you run into trouble?” Not that she could swoop in to the rescue. It’s not like she can fight.

“It is more that trouble seems to find us, with enviable regularity.” He looks at the sky again, and his forehead creases into a frown. “I must go soon.”

Margo hesitates, then she briefly brushes her fingers against the sleeve of his forearm. “Solas, wait. I need to ask you something.”

Another smile, and there is really something so gentle about him here, as if all the hard edges and brittleness is smoothed over by the dreamworld’s soft currents.

How does she do this? But it seems important that she know. “I passed my alchemy… entrance exams. But… ”

The elf’s smile widens — and, of course, the warm fuzzies don’t miss their opportunity to strike — but his expression remains quizzical. Well, as far as she’s concerned, warm fuzzies beat incoherent lust any day. She’ll take it. 

“What troubles you, lethallan?”

Her mind glosses over the unfamiliar moniker. No point in beating about the bush, right? Better just rip the band-aid right off. “Enchanter Minaeve and Master Adan had me make a particular formula. Its effects, while not lethal, were, for lack of a better word, odd.” She exhales, finding words to continue. “It created a very localized sort of hallucination that seemed… incredibly real. Are you familiar with anything like that?”

Solas looks at her thoughtfully. But Margo also realizes that there is no sparkle of recognition, or humor, or playfulness to his response. Polite, even friendly, interest, yes. But nothing that would suggest that he would know what she is talking about.

Her blood turns to ice.

“I imagine that any number of draughts would be able to create some manner of illusion, especially if they work to thin the Veil between the Fade and the waking world. What was specific to the one you imbibed?”

She should tell him. If she’s going to ask him for advice, then really, she should just bite the bullet and stop acting like a teenager with a crush. They’re all adults here, right? She’s too old for this shit. And really, so is he. “It… manifested someone… hmm… familiar. Except the hallucination’s behavior was…” Oh she’s such a chicken. “A bit out of character, I suppose. Plausible, perhaps, but not entirely.”

Solas peers at her, as if he is trying to figure out what’s hiding behind the words. “This figure from your vision, what did it do?”

Margo squirms under the elf’s gaze. “Well. The draught…” Oh, to hell with it, she’s being a brat about this. “Look, the draught was an aphrodisiac.” She watches his eyes widen. She’s actually a little bit disappointed that elven ears don’t reflect emotional states. She keeps expecting them to do a kind of Yoda number when they go up in surprise or excitement. “So, as you can imagine, while it is in full swing, you end up with a rather one-track mind. That’s really what makes it so challenging, it’s hard to do any work when you’re…” she trails off. Her cheeks are burning hot. 

“Ah.” He pauses, and his expression is… impish. “I can certainly see how this could interfere with one’s focus. And, may I ask who the familiar figure in your vision was?”

Well, wouldn’t you like to know. She narrows her eyes at him. “Not important at the moment,” she answers tersely. “The important thing is that I’m trying to work out if it was only a hallucination, or something else.”

“That you would think to ask this suggests that this is someone you are reasonably certain you might encounter in the Fade.” Oh, and he sounds so carefully neutral about it, too. “Out of curiosity, what was the name of the formula?”

Margo shrugs. “Something like Ishmael’s Bargain, if I recall correctly.”

Solas stills, his face suddenly deadly serious. “ _ Imshael’s _ Bargain? Are you quite certain?”

Ishmael, Imshael... Margo frowns. Whatever he is worried about, she doubts it’s the environmental consequences of whaling. This is going to be more bad news, isn’t it?

The elf’s hands suddenly come up, fingers curling in an almost painful grip around her arms, and he pivots her to face him. She finds herself tangled up in his gaze.

“Margo.” Her name on his lips sends a jolt down her spine. It’s… like an alchemist, tasting an unfamiliar plant for its properties. “Please. You must listen. This… vision, did it endeavor to offer you anything? A favor? A boon, perhaps?”

She shakes her head, suddenly numb. “Not quite. I suppose it offered… help. I turned it down.”

“And it did not insist?” he presses.

“It didn’t force itself on me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Solas’s grip on her relaxes, and then, a second of hesitation, and his hands come up to cup her face. He tilts her head up, his eyes searching for some kind of answer, though Margo at this points feels a little iffy about what the whole conversation was about in the first place.

“Who was in the vision, da’nas? You must tell me. I cannot help you if I do not know for sure what shape the Forbidden One took for you.”

The Forbidden One? What in the ever loving fuck is a Forbidden One? With a name like that, nothing good, no doubt.

“You,” she finally says.

At that, the elf pulls back from her as if scalded. He turns around and paces, eyebrows drawn in simmering anger. “How can these imbeciles not have thought this through? Children, playing with forces they cannot begin to comprehend… Whose idea was it, this draught?”

Margo takes hold of his forearm, and forces him to a stop. His random oscillations are making her a little dizzy, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep the dream in place and prevent it from sort of… drifting away, like a soap bubble.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think they were intentionally malicious. It sounded like it’s not an uncommon draught to use as a test.”

Solas is practically vibrating with irritation. “If so, then it is selected solely for the perverse amusement of the examiner, and with no consideration for potential consequences.” 

He is about to start pacing again, so Margo grips his arm more firmly. “Solas, hold on. This Forbidden One… Varric told me about something called desire demons. Is that the same category of thing?”

The elf nods. “That is one name for them, though the label oversimplifies the matter. Imshael is a very ancient one of its kind.”

“But shouldn’t it count for something that, in the end, nothing happened? I didn’t turn into a drooling husk, or anything.” 

“That they would trifle with such a thing is offense enough!” Again, that hot flash of anger. “It was pure luck that the demon miscalculated, and took the wrong shape.” 

If Margo didn’t know any better, she’d have to say he sounds just a pinch… ambivalent about that. 

“It…” She looks at him a bit more carefully then. There’s still that worried crease between his eyebrows, but there’s something else there, too, something almost wistful, and yet resigned, and the combination makes him look… vulnerable. She’s pretty sure that in the waking world, it would have been buried under layers of careful shields. 

She stares at the copse of trees, because at that moment, she can’t quite bring herself to meet his gaze. “I wouldn’t say it miscalculated in that sense. It made an… educated guess.”

She takes a quick look. Solas’s eyebrows are raised in surprise, a dusting of sudden color on his cheeks. But he’s still looking pretty thunderous about the whole thing. “ _ That… _ is unwise, lethallan. Although perhaps it misjudged you, which is... Somewhat reassuring. In either event, we cannot exclude the possibility that it will try again, with a better ‘educated guess’ next time.”

Margo frowns. “Even if I stay away from any similar formulas?”

“You cannot avoid sleeping. Your body and your spirit are mismatched. They make the Veil grow thin, and thus attract attention. And your spirit... stands out. You are quite easy to locate in the Fade — I did not have to look for long before I came upon you. It means that others will as well.”

So he has been looking for her? Ah. “You still have my memories. Perhaps by integrating them, I can… reattach to this body more firmly. Become less noticeable.”

He nods. “Perhaps. In any event, for lack of a more obvious solution, we should do this as soon as we are able.” He seems to hesitate, and then his expression hardens. “Lethallan, our association, whatever its nature, is proving… problematic. I would not…” He trails off.

Margo braces herself for what is likely going to come next, except that Solas suddenly looks off into the distance, and then his face contorts in a grimace of pain. “There is no time. If you are in the Hinterlands, come find us if you can. We may require assistance.”

Margo wakes up with a gasp, the contours of his face, distorted by some invisible anguish, like a retina burn on the back of her eyelids.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by calcination, a process where an ore or other solid material is heated in order to break down its molecular structure to make it suitable for medicine making. Widely used in different alchemical and medical traditions, notably with the infamous mercury ash.
> 
> Translations: _lelkem n. (Hungarian) Literally "my soul," figuratively, a term of endearment, like "darling" or "dear one." From lélek (soul) + -em (possessive suffix)._  
>  _da'nas_ \-- Something like "little soul" in what we presume might be Elvhen. ;)
> 
> _Next up: Trouble. Lots and lots of trouble. And also, learning more about Evie._


	10. Singularity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo discovers rifts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be advised that this chapter ends on a cliffhanger.

It takes Margo a few seconds to shake off the torpor of sleep, but when she finally does, the adrenaline propels her forward, ahead of any coherent thought. She crawls out of the tent she was sharing with Harding, gripped by a generalized, unfocused panic. It’s not dawn yet, but it’s getting close — the unfamiliar stars have paled, and a narrow band of fuschia pools along the horizon.

All of her bandmates are sound asleep, safe for Marek, on guard duty.

“Finally, you’re up. Lazy fucking elves,” he greets her. Of course, it couldn’t have been Harding, or the Twins, or even Jan. It just had to be one of the Tweedles. This will be an uphill battle.

“Listen, I think the Herald needs assistance. We need to try to find them.”

The goon stares at her, and then he twirls his index finger next to his temple in the multiversal gesture for “crazy.”

“Did you hit your head again, rabbit? First, how in the Void would you know that — you’ve been out like a log for the last six hours. Besides, don’t rightly know where they are, do we now?”

Margo looks at him in helpless frustration. How the hell is she supposed to convince this dimwitted asshat — who is already not predisposed to listen to anything she might have to say on account of deeply held ideological convictions about both elves and women — when all she’s got to go on is a dream. As much as she hates to admit this, the douchenozzle is right — she doesn’t have the slightest idea about where Evie and the others might be.

“Seeing how you’re awake and all, make yourself useful and take over. Gonna get me some shut-eye,” Marek announces, and lumbers off towards one of the tents. She can hear the thunderous snoring of the twins emanating from there, but the Tweedle is undeterred by the noise.

By that point, Margo is frenetic with the need to do something. Anything. Anything but this stupid, helpless wasting of time.

She gives up on the goon, crawls back into her own tent, and locates Harding’s sleeping shape in the darkness. She’s about the shake the dwarven woman awake, but before she can so much as reach for her, the scout sits up — dagger in hand, and an iron grip on Margo’s wrist.

“I think the Herald is in trouble,” Margo whispers, ignoring both blade and Harding’s hold on her. “Pardon the rude awakening,” she adds, and hopes that Lace Harding is genuinely awake, and not running through a somnambulist subroutine that will end with Margo missing fingers.

“When did the raven come in?” the scout asks, and, to Margo’s relief, the voice sounds alert. It takes her a second to realize that Harding is assuming that the news has been obtained through the local avian delivery service. 

She doesn’t see much choice but to exploit whatever goodwill Maile might have built up with the dwarf.

“It didn’t,” she says. “I saw it in the Fade.” Here is to hoping that Varric is right, and that all things Fade-related are outside of dwarves’ jurisdiction or propensity to debate.

Harding, bless her, takes this questionable announcement in stride. She nods once before pulling on her boots and leathers. “Did you get a sense of their location?” she asks, businesslike. 

“Not really.” Another wave of helpless frustration. How the hell are they supposed to look for them, when she has no idea — not even an inkling — of where they might be. For all she knows, the Hinterlands are the size of a small European country. Her understanding of the scale of Thedas is rudimentary verging on nonexistent.

Margo closes her eyes, forcing herself to recall the details of the dream. There was that copse of scraggly trees, but how many scraggly trees might there be in these mountains?

Then, it hits her. Solas kept looking at the sky — she never questioned what had drawn his attention, but the answer should be pretty obvious — there was a greenish glow on his face. And what’s big, ugly, green, and swirls like shit down a toilet? She hasn’t spotted Hellmouth from their location yet, because, of course, they are much further away from Haven — but it should still be visible from some angles, shouldn’t it?

Margo follows the scout out of the tent. “Lace, are there many places around here that you can see the Breach from?” she asks, hoping against hope that the answer will be a handy “ _ oh, really, just that one specific spot at XY coordinates _ .” 

She should be so lucky.

Harding reflects for a few seconds, then she shakes her head, and Margo’s heart sinks. “You can’t see much from this side of the range, the mountains are in the way. Did you notice anything else? Any other markers that might help me track? Trees, mountain profile, plants? Structures?”

A field of wilted grass and a copse of battered trees isn’t much to go by… At this point, Margo is practically howling with frustrated desperation and forced idleness, but she pushes down the instinct to simply start running in a random direction. “There were distinct craggy trees there — I remember thinking how weather-beaten they looked. And… a greenish glow from above. That’s why I thought this might be somewhere where the Breach is visible.”

Harding sniffs, absorbed by her topographic calculations. “Maybe not the Breach. But it could be the glow of a rift. In fact, that’s more likely. Trouble is, we’ve located a few in this area. Though there is that one right between here and the refugee camp. If they decided to cut across, as the bird flies…” The scout nods. “I don’t remember whether there are craggy trees there, but there is an old ruin. If they came upon it at night and decided to camp nearby, it is possible they wouldn’t have noticed the rift on the other side.”

Margo exhales through her teeth, feeling every bit like an overheated pressure cooker with a broken valve. This is such a stretch. Even Harding must know this is a fairly flimsy guesstimate, but what can they do, really? It’s that, or simply shrugging it off. Or running off at random, hoping that somehow the universe’s benevolence will lead them to the right location. Unlikely, that. So far, the universe isn’t proving particularly benevolent.

In the meantime, Harding seems to come to a decision. “I don’t want to leave the camp abandoned, in case they manage to make it up here, and need some help. I say we leave the twins and the other two, take Jan, and go take a look at that rift.”

Margo is already nodding, rushing off to wake up the soldier. Jan blinks sleep out of his eyes and makes a grab at her hips, trying to pull her on top of him. Margo bats his hands off, but before she gets the chance to knee him in the groin, Harding barks out the new orders in a tone that brooks no argument, lest there be consequences. Once he shelves his lecherous intentions, Bad News is on his feet, armed, and ready much quicker than Margo’s able to get her grenade belt and daggers. She stuffs as many ampules as she can — health potions, magica restoratives, and explosives — into the leather vial holder, and then she breaks into a run after the retreating figures of her two companions.

She can’t quite estimate how long it takes them to get in view of the green, shimmering thing hanging in mid-air at the foot of a broken bridge. They run the whole time, though Harding eventually makes a gesture with her fist, and slows them down to a swift jog, favoring stealth over speed. Margo can see the chartreuse glow before they come upon its source — the “rift,” as Harding called it. It looks like someone dropped a giant, fluorescent green egg yolk into a pot of cold water.  _ I do not like green eggs and ham _ , Margo mouths with a hysterical snigger.  _ Not with a goat, not on a boat... _ The thing — and there is something so fundamentally, viscerally perverse about it — pulses and morphs, like some disgusting life form. 

The rift is ringed by beings that defy the imagination. Margo assumes this is what “demons” are — they certainly look the part. Whatever their nature, they are certainly not human, by whatever definition one might use. There are translucent phosphorescing formations — vaguely humanoid, sure, but only in the most abstract sense of the term. They are positioned in a loose circle around the hell-yolk. Their soft puke-green glow illuminates the other denizens, and Margo’s brain strains to make sense of what she is seeing. “What the fuck is  _ that _ ?” she squeaks, before she can catch herself. Jan, next to her, cuts her a sardonic look, but even he looks vaguely sickened. He points his chin towards the creatures her eyes are fixated on. “Shades,” he supplies quietly. “First time, lass?” Margo has to stop herself from shaking her head to dislodge the nonsensical vision. The entities look and move like remarkably muscular, wiry slugs in the throes of a bad case of mummification — except they have multi-jointed arm-like appendages, truly spectacular claws, and for some reason they are wearing tattered little hoods that might be clothing, or might be a part of their body.

margo peels her gaze from the necro-slugs. She spots them, then, on the other side of the broken bridge, using the ruins of the old fort as cover. She squints against the glare of the hell-yolk. The closest one is Cassandra — the edge of her shield is visible behind the loose masonry of the crumbling rampart. Varric is next — further back, behind a large slab of stone. Judging by his movements, he is reloading the crossbow. Back behind Varric, she spots the other two as well — Evie and Solas are partially obscured from view by a fallen column, but the tops of their heads are still visible from Margo’s elevated vantage point. Solas is slumped against the column. The faintly flickering blue of what Margo assumes is the same barrier spell he cast around them when they were fleeing from the wolves surrounds both him and Evie. Even from this distance, the elf’s posture suggests either extreme exhaustion or some physical damage. Evie is completely immobile — either frozen by fear, or unconscious. 

Margo swallows around the frantic heartbeat in her throat. Harding crawls past her and gestures for them to get a move-on, breaking through Margo’s paralysis. The three of them hide behind the fallen tree trunk, using it to stop their slide down the gravelly slope into the ring of otherworldly fauna.

“All right,” Harding whispers. “They’re trapped in there. We need to give them a chance to break out. Maile-... I mean, Margo." The scout shakes her head with a slight frown. "I’ll get this straight eventually... Hit the circle with a couple of grenades, on opposite quadrants, here, and here." She gestures with a gloved hand. "That will draw the lot of them this way once they figure out where we’re pummeling them from, but it should give me and Jan time to get in position. I will try to put down as many wisps as I can at long range. Jan, go around and draw in a few shades your way. Margo, once you see an opening, go on the other side, here, while Jan is giving the bastards a little exercise. I’ll cover. Do not tangle with them, are we clear? Go straight into the fort, and get the others back on their feet. You have enough potions?”

Margo nods through chattering teeth. Harding exhales. “Oof. Maker willing, there won’t be another wave. Is everyone ready?”

Jan grins, his teeth a stark white against his tanned skin. “Let’s send the spongy bastards back to the Void, ladies.”

Harding scowls. “No heroics, Bordelon. Keep it simple. You start getting overwhelmed, you shadow out of there. Margo?”

Hell in a sack. Just like hurling tomatoes at that thieving little shit Mihal from two houses over, right? No biggie. Margo extracts two ampules out of her belt, her fingers shaking so badly she almost drops one of them. And then she stands up as quietly as she can. Just like tomatoes. _Dögölj meg_ , you bastards. She braces one knee against the tree trunk, holds her breath, and she lobs the grenades — two underhand throws in quick succession — at each side of the circle. The explosions are a second or two apart, and the blasts slap her with a heat wave before she has the time to fall back behind the trunk again.

Harding is already gone, running along the slope for a better firing position. There’s a succession of sharp, whistling sounds to Margo’s left, and she watches as one, then two of the humanoid floaters flicker out of existence with a puff of green smoke, like a cloud of spores. The third shot misses, and the arrow embeds into the grass below with juicy “thwack.” The circle shifts formation, and the demons start making their way in Margo’s general direction. The necro-slugs are making extremely unpleasant noises that put her in mind of huge metal plates, grating at the bottom of a mine shaft. 

While the creatures are still deciding where to go, Margo throws one more grenade into the thickest cluster of the unpleasant things. This time, she ducks in time to avoid the heat wave. Wherever Jan is, he is no longer behind the log. 

“We are here,” she hears the Seeker’s clear, sharply accented voice ring out through the clearing. “We cannot move out!”

Margo climbs over the log and makes her way down the slope, giving the milling cluster of demons as wide a berth as she can. Right. No tangling. No tangling sounds like a really fantastic fucking idea.

Bad News materializes as if he stepped out of a shadow on the other side of the cluster. He attacks one of the slugs with quick, economical strikes, his daggers catching the glow of the rift above. If she had any concerns that the rogue would be a show off, considering his general character, they are quickly dissipated. He’s lethally efficient, like someone who learned to fight in the streets. No frills, pure pragmatics.

Margo is running along the outer perimeter of the green glow, when the ground gives out under her — she doesn’t notice the drop into the ravine until it is too late. She slides down the pebbly flank with a surprised yelp and a curse. It’s enough to attract the attention of two floaters who turn their smudged, shimmering faces her way. Before she can scramble for shelter, they spit some kind of substance — the word that comes to her mind is  _ ectoplasm _ — in her general direction. Margo drops to her stomach at the bottom of the ravine, and the shit floats by overhead. 

She’s on her feet again, scrambling up the other side, trying to keep her mind focused entirely on making it through the breach in the wall.

She almost makes it into the fort’s perimeter when out of the corner of her eye Margo spots another one of those floating ectoplasmic emissions hurling in her direction. Still, she’s not on its trajectory — a quick estimate suggests that it’s aimed at the column, but as long as Solas and Evie don’t come out from behind it, they should be just fine. Margo keeps running along her chosen vector towards Cassandra. Except the thrice-bedamned spectral ejaculation changes its mind mid-flight. Margo feels, more than sees, the projectile careen off its course at an angle that should not be possible. And then it slams into her back, square between the shoulderblades.

For a second, it feels like she’s a sock being turned inside out and then folded into itself like a doughnut. She crumples to the ground, blood bursting from her nose in a coppery spray that clogs her throat and sinuses. She retches it out, coughing spastically until she can breathe again, but somehow she manages to get back on her feet. A second round of ectoplasmic junk floats at her with a subsonic keen, and she rolls out of the way, hitting her shoulder on the wall with a sickening jolt. The otherworldly sputum splatters against the stones, covering her in a film of spore-like particles that stink of rotting fish. 

Fucking hell, but these things are vile.

Then someone drags her by the armpits further into the shelter of the ruined wall.

“Are you all right, agent?” Cassandra’s face float into view, and Margo forces herself into a vertical position, finally coming into an awkward crouch next to the Seeker. Her stomach is still trying to expulse its contents, and Margo has a passing thought that it would be nice if the impending vomit would miss the Seeker.

There’s a reason she’s here, right? Flasks. Yes. 

She casts a quick glance at the opening in the wall, but whatever demons are trying to come through are being discouraged by a combination of Varric’s fire and Harding’s arrows. Margo frowns. Something is not quite right. Varric’s bolts are not flying straight. Not at all, in fact. They seem to be launching off well enough, but then their trajectory changes mid-flight, and they hit everything but their intended target.

She turns to Cassandra for confirmation. “Am I seeing this right?” 

The Seeker’s eyes, dark in the shadow of the crumbling tower, are rimmed with an exhausted, sickly purple. “Yes. This… This has been happening since the beginning, but it’s been getting… far worse.”

What the actual fuck is with the physics around here?

“Please tell me you have healing potions with you.” 

The question returns Margo’s attention from the misbehaving arrows. She digs for a tonic — because really, that is one thing she  _ can _ do — and slams two potions into Cassandra’s hand. One “healing,” and one “restorative,” according to Adan’s terminology — which, in Margo’s humble opinion, is just the difference between quick and timed release formulas.

“Can you still fight?” she asks. Cassandra is already downing one of the draughts.

“Yes. See if you can tend to the others. Varric is fine, though he has somehow managed to sprain his ankle.” The degree of exasperated frustration at this revelation makes Margo think that Cassandra’s probably going to be just fine. “Solas may need assistance.”

Margo nods. “And Lady Trevelyan?”

“Frightened, but unscathed, as far as I can tell.” The words are delivered rather dryly. 

Once Varric has stopped to reload, Margo crawls towards him, trying to not get caught by another ectoplasmic projectile. She really doesn’t want to risk the anarchic arrows — based on their behavior, they seem perfectly capable of turning around and deciding that her ass would make for a suitable pin cushion. When she reaches the dwarf, he looks up, a wry twist to his mouth. “Well, Prickly, you’re a sight for sore eyes.” 

Margo hands him his allocated potions. “How the hell did this happen? Scratch that. Is Bianca feeling alright?”

Varric shakes his head, pointing a gloved finger towards the breach in the wall. “It’s not just my bolts. Take a look.”

Margo follows the dwarf’s gaze. Cassandra steps out from behind her shelter, shield raised before her to meet one of the hooded necro-slugs propelling itself through the opening. The Seeker lifts her sword to strike a blow — and it looks like it’s going to be a very nice blow, all sorts of accurately lethal — except that the warrior’s heel catches on a loose rock at a critical moment, and she stumbles. The strike barely grazes the demon’s shoulder. 

The necro-slug screeches its metallic war cry.

Varric aims Bianca and fires. The bolt actually flies true this time, and hits the slug in the abdominal area — if the thing has an abdomen, that is. It screeches some more — pissed off about the arrow in its gut, no doubt — and it retreats back out through the breach.

“See, I count now. I can get approximately every fifth bolt to hit something I actually would like it to hit.”

Margo frowns. So… not just physics that’s being distorted, but…

Before she can finish the thought the dwarf puts a hand on her shoulder.

“You need to make it to Chuckles. He’s taken a bit too much damage when they first fell on us. You’re packing magica potions, yes?”

She nods, and she gets to her feet. Her body is numb with adrenaline, even the pain in her shoulder a muted distraction. It’s not far to the column — five, six yards at most — and Margo covers the distance easily enough. She is a few paces away when her foot gets caught in a crack in the stones, and she crashes into the column with a loud, crunchy smack on top of the previous shoulder injury. Pain shoots through he left arm and into her clavicle.

She forces herself to crawl over the column, and she collapses into a heap on the other side. Through the pain, she has a stark vision of Evie, her face smeared with dirt and tears. On the other side of the kid, Solas, pale as a ghost, his profile illuminated by the dull glow of whatever magic he’s still managing to maintain, doesn’t look up. His head rests against the column’s stone, his eyes closed, features gaunt and sharp in the ethereal gleam, and Margo has trouble believing that only a day passed since she’s last seen him.

“M- M- Margo! Oh thank Andraste you’re here!” Evie hiccups.

“Are you ok, kiddo?” She tries to see if Evie is injured, but the kid looks largely in one piece. Margo pulls out a potion from her holder and downs it in a few gulps. She can afford  _ one _ . The rest will have to go to the others.

The pain subsides.

“I- I’m fine. Please help Solas! There was this big demon, and it came out of nowhere, and then Solas tried to put a barrier and freeze it in place, but then somehow that didn’t work quite right, and then…”

Solas opens his eyes and looks at Margo, grey gaze dulled with pain. “You cannot remain here, lethallan. You must get away at once. It is not safe.” 

“I can damn well see it’s not safe!” Margo announces acerbically, because at this point meeting the universe’s endless capacity to generate clusterfucks with generalized bitchiness seems vastly preferable to incoherent panic. She gets three more ampules out of her belt — her arm does not miss the opportunity to scream in protest. Potions in hand, she crawls over to the elf, trying not to drop anything. She does, in fact, drop one ampule — it feels like it jumps right out of her hand — but she is able to locate it just as she’s about to crush it with her knee. 

Once she’s wedged between Solas and Evie, Margo gives the elf a critical once-over. Well. She’s not a doctor. But this much blood on the outside is probably not a good thing. She pries one of the flasks open — the quick release formula — and she puts her hand at the back of Solas’s neck to tilt his head up. He doesn’t struggle against her touch, or bat away her hands with some bullshit attempt at “I’m fine,” so there’s that. She empties the tonic into his mouth and she watches his throat work as he swallows the liquid. Atta elf. 

When Solas’s eyes open again, they are less clouded, and Margo decides to file that away as a win. Team — One, Universe — (which is revealing itself to be a cheating asshole anyway) — Zero.

She passes him the lyrium potion, and he unstoppers it with unsteady fingers, draining it in one draw. The bluish glow gets marginally brighter.

“The only way we might yet survive this is for the Herald to use her mark on the rift,” he says, voice deceptively calm, expression stony. Margo has a feeling she is coming in on the tail-end of an ongoing argument, and that she has missed all the best parts.

She takes a look at Evie. The kid is shaking like a leaf. “I can’t. I’m so sorry, I can’t! I am trying, but I can’t, please, please don’t make me come near that thing! I can’t do it…”

So, the kid is in shock and terrified out of her wits. Of course she is. Who the fuck asks someone to go wave their hand at a fluorescent hell-yolk that spits out primordial horrors? “Evie, hun, listen to me. How far do you need to be for this to work?”

Evie is still shaking her head in denial. “No, no, no, please, I can’t, I really can’t, I’m trying, but I can’t, it hurts when I try, and...”

“Sure you can, kid. We’re going to go together, deal?”

“You cannot!” Solas’s hand shoots out and crushes Margo’s wrist in a steely grip that shouldn’t be quite so firm considering that a minute ago he was fading. “You will get yourself killed.” Neither a warning, nor a threat, but a statement of fact.

“Probably, but maybe not today,” Margo opines, with cheerfulness she does not feel at all. “Evie, how far from the rift do you need to be to close it?”

“Five or six yards, I think, but I’m not sure, because I’ve never had a chance to test it without demons there, because there are always these demons around and they’re really not very helpful if you want to figure out how far out it works, and…”

Margo nods, and begins to extricate herself from Solas’s hold on her wrist. He does not immediately let go. 

“Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll let Cassandra and Varric distract the demons — they don’t actually have to kill them, just keep them entertained. Solas, do you have enough magic to cover us?”

Solas shakes his head. “The only spell I am reliably able to cast is barrier. Everything else is…” he makes a little gesture with his hand that, to Margo, seems to indicate something like “hocus pocus.” He shifts, leaning on his staff to maneuver himself into a crouch. “There must be old magics in this fort that are interfering with my focus, although I cannot quite understand their nature.”

But didn’t Cassandra say something about their team’s mysterious incompetence going on for longer than this particular predicament? Something about it becoming worse over time?

Whatever might be the case, they do not have time for idle speculation about the wonky physics, or what’s impeding on Solas’s magic. The point is to get Evie out of the way of the demons, and close enough to the hell-yolk to do whatever it is that Evie does. “Solas, is there a way up the ramparts?”

The frowns at her, his expression a mixture of worry and disapproval.

“I am wondering if we can avoid most of the fight, and get Evie close enough to the rift.”

He considers this, then nods. “I saw a ladder on the other side of this wall. Though I am unsure as to where it leads.”

Margo presses the last regeneration draught into his hand. “Try to stay alive, yes? I will remind you that we have an appointment.” Unless, of course, the dream was only that — or worse, unless its other participant was not who he appeared to be.

“We do indeed.” And there is definitely a trace of a smile now, so Margo feels cautiously optimistic that the elf changed his mind about expiring tragically. “I would not miss it, da’nas.”

“And there’s your incentive to not get killed,” Margo grins — because inappropriate flirtation beats mind-numbing terror — and then she hooks her good arm around Evie’s, and they strike off in the direction Solas indicated.

At her back, she can hear fighting, but it all sounds relatively sluggish. The whistling of arrows, the occasional clash of metal, intermittent demonic screeching all blend together and fade into the background, but she still has the feeling that it’s all her side can do to not get overrun.

They do find the ladder to the top of the ramparts, tucked away in the darkest part of the ruin. The wood is rickety and half-rotted. Margo goes first, letting Evie bring up the rear. Somehow, they manage not to fall.

“Do you like heights?” Evie asks suddenly, once they are atop the rampart. “I really like heights. Bann Trevelyan always said I shouldn’t climb around everywhere like some ‘demented squirrel’ — but you just feel so much better when you’re up above the whole mess of it, and see everything. It’s like… easier to breathe.”

Margo, who is not a giant fan of heights on the best of days, just nods and makes some encouraging noise as they teeter along the crumbling rampart.

Eventually, they make it to the farthest point of the wall — right above Cassandra’s strategic position. The amount of demons in the clearing has diminished, but not by much. And it looks like the hell-yolk has decided to regroup, and is now sprouting green crystal protrusions like the world’s most expensive and useless Czech hedgehog. 

Evie’s hand glows green.

“I can reach it!”

“Do it, kid,” Margo nods. 

Evie thrusts her hand at the rift. Green lightning shoots from her palm, straight into the crystal-formerly-known-as-yolk. Margo looks down. There is a distinct change in the fortunes of her companions. Cassandra is charging the group of demons with quick, precise strikes, and each blow connects as designed. Varric’s bolts fly true. And Solas swings his staff with practiced ease, raining freezing spells on the demonic horde (or what’s left of it) — and, for a second, Margo finds herself mesmerized by the effortless elegance of his movements.

And then the green crystal mass explodes with a shock wave. Margo pulls out her last grenade, and she hurls it into the circle of otherworldly fauna. The demons disintegrate into ethereal rags, reabsorbed into the rift’s center of gravity. 

“You must seal it!” Solas cries out below, and Evie reaches her hand forward again, screaming through whatever physical anguish this process is causing her, her face drawn in an expression of pained concentration. Despite the pain and terror, she does not stop. Another shock wave hits them — this one with a distinct smell of rot — and the rift collapses on itself, then winks out of existence, the air around it resealing with a hollow pop.

Down by the ramparts, Jan, bloody but alive, limps towards the rest of the group. Harding is close on his heels, and she greets Cassandra with a hearty handshake.

Evie turns around, her cheeks still streaked with tears, but her expression is full of new-found resolve.

“I did it! Margo, I did it, I closed it!”

Margo grins at her. They’re alive. They made it out alive. “Of course you did.”

Still grinning, Margo steps forward to give Evie a hug, and then a loose stone shifts under her foot. She crouches down on instinct, trying to regain her balance. It would have worked, too, if not for the freaky, completely uncalled for gust of wind that blows dust from the wall’s eroded surface into her eyes. She throws her hands up, her heel slipping on the unstable cobblestone, and, with a brief wobble at the edge of the wall, Margo loses her footing, and plummets down.

“Margo, no!”

She gets a glimpse of Evie’s panicked face before it careens out of view.

The last thing she sees before her body breaks against the stones at the foot of the ramparts is the crimson disk of the rising sun slicing through the feathery gray foam of morning clouds.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by Lady Luck, who can be a fickle mistress. Also, wonky physics, and Czech hedgehogs, the colloquial name for one type of WW-2 anti-tank barricade.
> 
> Next up: Competing interests; the Inquisition expands its ranks; negotiations around Orlesian cuisine


	11. Adrift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo reincorporates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some tongue-in-cheek fluff for your weekend reading :)

She drifts, unmoored and shapeless in an amorphous vastness with no beginning and no end. There is neither sound nor form, no sensory input except for the experience of two planes running in parallel — pure abstractions, their _flatness_ and lack of intersection their only qualia. She — whoever she is — doesn’t know how much time passes, for time is not a relevant parameter where she now dwells. Her memory of a thing called “time” is no more than an artifact of language.

After — after a “before” and an “after” come into being relative to each other — after, when the two planes curl on themselves to form something like a tunnel [ _trunk_ ], after, when the tunnel [ _trunk_ ] multiplies into an infinity of little passages [ _limbs_ ], and she is gently pulled through the maze of corridors [ _branchlets_ ] towards a single oblong shape like a door [ _leaf_ ] or, perhaps, a mirror [ _leaf_ ], after all that, she discovers Sound.

At first, Sound is no more than empty stimulus. It is better than aimless drifting, so she clings to it, until Sound turns into a container for Sense.

Words form, but not hers.

“We cannot tarry much longer. The Inquisition's meeting with the clerics must happen, and soon.” A steely, crisply accented voice.

“I do not work miracles, Cassandra. I strongly recommend not moving her while the bones are mending. And while I would certainly not presume to delay you, I doubt the presence of an apostate will sway the Chantry in the Inquisition’s favor.” Tired. Exhausted by the same debate.

A pause.

“Solas, you are being completely unreasonable. When you joined with the Inquisition, you realized the importance of what we were doing. Each of us has a role here.” Uneasy.

“I simply wish to offer my assistance in ways that would be _tangibly_ productive, Seeker.” Heat beneath the ice.

“If… if this is about your safety, then I assure you that you will be in no more danger from the clerics than the rest of us. Now is not the time to develop scruples about your apostasy.”

A sigh. “This debate is pointless.”

“Be that as it may, decisions must be made. There are more immediate matters to attend to than your duties as a healer. We cannot endanger the Inquisition’s progress on account of a single operative.”

A long pause.

“The moral slope you walk is a slippery one, Seeker. I fear you might not find its bottom to your liking.” Ice beneath the heat.

“Have a care, mage. Until such a time as your skills in controlling the Herald’s mark become replaceable, your oath binds you.”

“Then I shall wait with bated breath for a replacement, undoubtedly forthcoming.”

A third voice. The dwarf.

“Enough, you two! You’re going to wake everyone up.”

She tries to anchor herself, but there is nothing to attach to. The fleshy form on the other side feels too heavy. Too painful. She drifts.

***

“Let him sleep, Seeker. He can use the rest.” The dwarf. Casual. Conciliatory.

“Ugh!” Utterly disgusted. “He is not thinking clearly.” Hard. Speaking through impatience.

A frustrated sigh. “He’s just trying to do what he thinks is the right thing.”

“Is that what you call this interminable stalling? He is being rather selective about which aspect of the ‘right thing’ he chooses to be zealous about. Certainly, the Inquisition needs healers. But it is equally his duty to accompany the Herald. If this procrastination is brought on by his distaste for the Chantry…”

A sigh. “You know, Seeker, I really don’t think that this is what’s going on here.” A bit sarcastic. Also, frustrated.

“Then what?”

A pause.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never found yourself actually giving a shit, Cassandra.”

“Of course, I ‘give a shit,’ Varric! Would I be here if I did not?” Lonely.

“It’s not…” Grumbling. “Do you ever think that people might be more than fodder for someone’s war, Seeker? Do you pause, and look up? You might be surprised to find that there’s still a world out here. With people in it.” Amused. A bit bitter, and unsure why. Wants an answer, but doesn’t know which one.

“Of course I do, Varric, do not be ridiculous.” A long pause. “But not everyone is like you. Do you ever think of people as more than fodder for your stories?” Angry, but mostly just vulnerable. Hoping he doesn’t notice.

“Shhh!” A third voice. “Get a tent.”

“It’s not… like that!” Outrage hiding embarrassment.

A quiet chortle.

“I swear, dwarf, if…”

She drifts.

***

“Seeker Pentaghast, I’m very sorry, I just don’t think one more day will make a difference, and Solas says…” The kid. Nervous, but resolved.

“I know what Solas says, Herald. He has been saying the same thing for the last three days. But we cannot wait any longer. Leliana sends news that Mother Giselle’s recommendation has reached Orlais. If we do not go at once, we lose whatever advantage her endorsement might have gained us.”

“But surely one more day will not make that much of a difference?”

“It is Orlais, Lady Trevelyan. You know as well as I do that the social climate changes there in an instant.”

She drifts.

***

“I am happy you decided to join us, Warden Blackwall. Please, assist Harding with securing this location, then report back to Haven.”

A new voice. Gruff. Edged with an old ache. “Understood, Seeker. Glad to be of service.” A pause. “What is it, Herald?”

“You don’t happen to have a griffon, do you?” The kid. Excited.

“A griffon?” A rumbling chuckle. “M’afraid not, my lady.”

“Aw, well. I guess… that’s all right. I just thought it would be nice to have a griffon because then you could fly high up, and then surveying the area would be so much easier, wouldn’t it? Though I suppose you’d need to feed it and care for it. And store is somewhere, I guess. I don’t think I know what griffons eat, now that I think about it.”

“They were predators.” Slightly discomfited throat-clearing. “According to Warden… ehem... records.”

“You know their favorite meal was damsels, Tricksy? Preferably in distress, but I guess they’d make do.”

“Really? But why _damsels_?” Puzzled. “Do women taste better?”

Choked sounds. Someone chortling. “Do you really want an answer to that, Your Heraldship?”

“For the love of Andraste, Varric! If you _would not mind_.” Utterly scandalized. “Your travel gear will not magically gather itself.”

***

“Well, Seeker. We’re ready. You all packed up, Your Heraldness?”

“I still think we should listen to Solas and stay one more day. I… I mean, it’s not like the clerics will run away. Will they?” Pleading.

“Solas has finally agreed that, at this point, it is out of his hands. Scout Harding and the others will look after the agent. Her injuries are healing well. The question is whether she will wake up, and this depends on the Maker, not us.” Urgent. Impatient.

“Come on, Tricksy. You heard the Seeker. The Orlesian Chantry isn’t going to recruit itself.”

“Varric, why do I get to be ‘Tricksy’?”

“I just have a feeling about these things. Let’s go.”

“You have your orders, scout.”

“Affirmative, Seeker.” Bright, a bit relieved. “We will secure the location, set up a permanent camp, finish up the herbalism survey. There’s also the Carta presence I wouldn’t mind investigating. By your leave, of course.”

“Stay cautious. We cannot afford to lose more people.”

“Of course. No heroics.”

A pause. “You have my thanks.”

***

“It is my hope that you might still find your way back, lethallan.” Quiet and resigned. A long hesitation. “We have an appointment, as I recall. I intend to hold you to it.”

***

“Hey, didn’t we have more sacks?” Bad News. Totally confused by the unsurmountable arithmetic problem.

“Blighted blood lotus, stinks like a giant’s arse, it does. I say we just chuck it. Ain’t carrying this shite on my back all the way to Haven. Methinks someone else can deal with it, like.” Tweedle.

_Paws off my reeds, shitgibbon!_

A foothold. She stops drifting.

***

Margo wakes up in the middle of the night to someone feeding her bone broth. Her body feels heavy, but there is no pain.

“Looks like you’ll make it after all, lass.” Bad News. Great. To Margo’s surprise, he is not being opportunistic with his hands — his hold on her is shockingly virtuous.

“How long have I been out?” she asks between spoonfuls of broth. Her voice is rusty.

“Long enough for me to want to drown Marek in the lake. Saved your sacks of lotus from certain destruction, by the way. You owe me a pint. But I’ll take other displays of gratitude whenever you’re up for it.”

“Pint it is.”

He laughs, then he maneuvers her back into her bedroll. A scratchy blanket lands on top of her. Margo drifts off to Harding and Jan singing some bawdy jaunty about Andraste’s mabari. Whatever that is.

***

When she opens her eyes again, it is within a dream — a proper dream, the first fully formed one since her unmooring.

She looks around, expecting the now typical sight — the field of summer grasses — but, instead, she is in Adan’s apothecary. The hearth fire is unlit, the sky outside the window an inky black. A single candle burns on the desk. In its unsteady flicker, shadows shift along the walls.

Solas is sitting in one of the chairs, but when he notices her, he springs to his feet, his features tense.

“You have regained enough of yourself to find your way back.” A pause. “Good.” He forces his face into a neutral expression, but the mask isn’t entirely seamless — though Margo isn’t entirely sure what it is meant to conceal. “When I could not sense your presence in the Fade for several days after we left, I became… concerned.” He trails off. Everything about the elf’s posture telegraphs uncertainty, an odd affect to see dream-side, where he so clearly feels more at ease.

Margo takes a few steps forward. “Ok. Oof... all right. Hhaaa. Just... Give it to me straight. Did… did the fall damage the spinal cord? Will I be able to walk?”

It is the only thought her mind currently has room for.

Solas frowns, but then his expression softens as the meaning of her question reaches him. “No, da’nas, you are not paralyzed. Your body is healing well. I was able to cast a barrier spell when I heard the Herald’s cry. It absorbed much of the impact.” At Margo’s questioning look, he elaborates, his composure regained now that the topic has turned to the technical aspects. “I had to correct for the velocity of the falling object. Adjusting a static spell for accel-...”

Margo has stopped listening. She is so absolutely elated by the news that she is practically jumping up and down. She’s alive! She’s not going to be paralyzed! She’ll walk! She crosses over to Solas, and, before the saner part of her mind has time to protest, she cups his face, lifts up on her toes, and plants a firm kiss at the corner of his lips.

And then she blinks and steps away, because… Well, maybe that was a tad impulsive.

The elf’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. His ears turn pink. And then his eyes travel to her mouth, and he looks like he is having a very lively debate with himself about what to do about this new development. He shakes his head, takes a half-step forward — and a full step back. Then he stops in his tracks and simply stares at her with an expression of almost comical confusion.

Margo grins, probably totally sheepishly, but she is so relieved it is hard to put into words. “To be clear, that was meant as a ‘thank you,’ though I suppose I should have verbalized it instead. Anyway. Yes. _Thank you_. For putting me back together. Again.” And then she snorts. Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall… She supposes the humor would be a bit lost on him, but maybe he would find the little rhyme amusing too — especially the debates about whether or not it refers to King Richard the III, an egg, or a siege engine. Since, clearly, all three are known to fall off walls. “I feel like I’m making a bad habit of this, but you saved my hide. Again.”

Solas, in the meantime, decides to manage whatever internal conflict he might be experiencing the usual way: by pacing around the room, hands folded at his back.

“Ah, yes. You are welcome. My point…” He clears his throat, turns around, and paces in the other direction. “My point is that because the barrier was cast mid-fall, your body still sustained some damage, and it will be a week of rest, at least, before you are fully mended. I strongly recommend you abstain from doing anything stupid in the meantime.”

Margo grins. “Stupid? I never do anything stupid. Just… ill-advised. And only in retrospect.”

He stops his oscillations and comes to stand in front of her, balancing a little on the balls of his feet. “And you feel… yourself? Connected to this body?”

Margo considers his question. “Yes. It took some time, but I believe I ‘reincorporated.’”

That gets her a chuckle, along with a worried frown.

“I'm fine. Apparently, you do, in fact, work miracles." She replays his earlier words in her head— or its virtual variant, in any case. "Wait, you said a few days since… Where are you, exactly? Geographically, I mean?”

“Accompanying the others to Val Royaux, as per Cassandra’s very insistent requests.” At her blank look, he adds “the capital city of Orlais.”

Aha! That’s the French-sounding kingdom somewhere west from where they are that Cassandra and the others have been debating about while she was stuck in the topological anomaly. “Because Evie needs to collect the support of the Chantry clerics, did I overhear this right?”

“Futile as the exercise will likely prove to be.”

“You don’t put much faith in their ability to help?”

“I do not put much faith in the Chantry’s willingness to put aside its petty squabbles and appetite for worldly power, especially considering the Inquisition’s claims to Lady Trevelyan’s status as Herald of Andraste.”

Bloated religious organization meddling in politics. Some things stay constant. “Are there other allies that might be persuaded to come on board while you’re there?”

Solas shrugs. “It is possible. Though I do not doubt that if they do, it will be to further their own agendas.”

Well, perhaps there are other useful aspects to Orlais. Maybe the similarities with France do not end with linguistics?

“Solas, do they have bakeries in Val Royaux? And before you ask… In my world, there is a geopolitical entity that sounds remarkably similar to this Orlais, and they came up with a delightful thing called éclairs, which is this custard-filled choux dough number...”

Solas blinks, and then his expression turns profoundly peeved. “I have spent the better part of the week reassembling your fractured bones shard by broken shard while scouring the Fade for your wayward spirit. And now you are suggesting that you would like me to bring you a _pastry_?” And he sounds equal parts incredulous, scandalized, and entertained by this.

“Well, now that you mention it…”

The elf shakes his head, before throwing up his hands in a gesture that Margo guesses is meant to express a state of bafflement of truly cosmic proportions. “ _Mythal’enaste,_ da’nas, what am I supposed to do with you?”

The temptation to tease him is almost overwhelming, but there was some kind of important matter she wanted to bring up… Aha. The wonky physics. “Glad you asked! How do you feel about puzzles?”

“Puzzles,” he repeats, with an expression that leaves absolutely no doubt about his opinion of her sanity.

“Yes. A puzzle that’s been niggling at me. You said there were strange magics in the fort — something that affected your ability to cast.”

Solas nods, his face attentive once again. His earlier amused irritation is gone without a trace.

“And, it wasn’t just you, yes? You saw Varric’s arrows? Cassandra tripping over herself?”

Another nod.

“When I entered the perimeter, it began to affect me as well. I am not normally quite this clumsy.”

“I should hope not.” He almost manages to hide the wry note.

Margo sighs. “I noticed something when we were on the ramparts. The three of you were suddenly able to fight again, without the strange… luck handicap.”

Solas’s gaze drifts as he considers her model. “You are correct. It is as if our luck had turned then — but not yours.” His features harden at the memory. “I saw you. When you lost your footing. It was as if a gust of wind had pushed you off the wall.”

Margo represses an involuntary shudder. “Threw dust in my eyes, actually, but I suppose the result was the same. Look, correlation doesn’t mean causation — this may be nothing more than two coinciding, but independent events — but there was one variable that did, in fact, change.”

His eyes widen for a second. “The Herald.”

“Precisely. Evie.” She pauses. “As you know, my world does not have magic as yours does.”

“I have gathered as much. In fact, I have been quite curious as to how you make sense of the magic you see here.”

How, indeed. Margo tries to formulate a response. She taps the knuckle of her finger against her lips, abstractly surprised that the “I’m thinking” tic carried over to the Fade. Then she looks up and realizes that it seems to have a distinctly distracting effect on the elf. She stops. He wrestles his gaze from her mouth and clears his throat.

“So, to answer your question… one optic through which you might describe magic is probability.” She is not sure if the term is in the Theodosian repertoire, or whether it means the same thing, but perhaps the explanation will take care of whatever false cognates there might be. “Let’s take a lightning strike. You might say that by causing it, you are bending probability such that a lightning bolt would hit at a precise moment, and at a precise location, as a factor of your will.” She makes a “Zeus smiting mortals with lightning bolts” gesture with her hand, accompanied by a little sound effect.

Solas purses his lips, but then his expression resolves, through a quick sequence of emotions — amusement, understanding, curiosity — into an eventual smile. “Ah. By probability, you do not simply mean a mere turn of phrase — not abstract chance — but, rather, a precise parameter?”

“Yes.” Of course, she’s not a scientist by training, and it’s not like she can explain probability in its statistical sense… But the concept might have cultural traction, and she wonders whether it could port to this world enough that Solas would find some parallels. “I wish I could explain this more precisely, but bear with me. Is it possible that there’s something about the magic in Evie’s mark that skews probability — luck — the other way?”

He considers this. “A hex would be a crude example of such magic, diminishing the target’s competence or skill, but it requires impressive concentration, unlikely to be sustained for long even by experienced mages. The Herald is no mage, despite the power contained in the mark. But something certainly appears to tip the scales not in our favor. It is an interesting problem, and bears further examination…”

She waits for him to finish his thought.

“The effects, whatever their underlying cause, tend to fluctuate.”  
  
“Is there a pattern? Something systematic you noticed?”

He takes a few seconds to reflect on the question. “It is more pronounced in situations where danger is imminent. Though it is curious that it would affect you just the same, considering...” Solas stops abruptly. His eyes lock on hers, then travel along her face — cheekbone, jawline, lips. His brows are drawn in a quizzical frown as if he is trying to puzzle out the meaning of some arcane symbol.

“Considering I am not exactly... standard issue for your world, never mind the inadvertent body-snatching and resulting mimicry, yes.” She takes a breath. “If I could give it back, I would.”

For a moment, the elf looks abashed and almost grief-stricken, and then he inclines his head. “I intended no offense.”

There was an important point she was trying to impart, right? “It’s not Evie’s fault, whatever it is. She asked for none of this. However, please, try to stay safe — even if the temptation to test the ‘dangerous situations’ hypothesis is overwhelming. Don’t… I don’t know, start a duel while you’re trying to sweet-talk the clerics, yes?”

She gets a small smile for that one. “Try as I might to picture this scenario, it is unlikely that the clerics of the Orlesian Chantry will find an apostate’s ‘sweet-talk’ persuasive. Let us hope that Seeker Pentaghast or Lady Trevelyan take this task upon themselves.”

Margo shrugs. “Don’t sell yourself short. If I were a cleric, I’m sure I would find you perfectly persuasive.”

She meant it in the sense that clerics are probably well-disposed to complex exegetical debates, but somehow it comes out sounding quite a bit more… ambiguous.

Uh-oh. She knows this smirk. This will be followed by some kind of outrageous statement, but then again she did set herself up for it, so no point in crying foul now…

But Solas says nothing. Just considers her with a distinctly mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

“Yes?”

“Oh, no matter.” Fake innocence at its finest. “I was simply trying to imagine you as a cleric. In Chantry robes.”

Margo cocks an eyebrow. “That’s a rather curious mental exercise. Whatever for? Are they particularly fetching robes?”

“Not at all. Quite awful, in fact.”

“Then... why?”

“Would you prefer it if I envisioned you without them?”

He looks quite pleased with himself. Margo narrows her eyes. "You know you're an outrageous flirt, right?"

Solas chuckles quietly, but then his momentary mirth takes a hard turn for the wistful. "Ah, da'nas, you are correct. Compliments about your physical form come easily. They are objectively true, of course, but they are also a superficial distraction from the fact that it is when I encounter your spirit that words seem to elude me."

Margo blinks. Processes. And then the warm and fuzzies tackle her — as they do — and she throws up her hands in her own rendition of cosmic befuddlement.

"I'll amend my earlier statement. You're an _egregious_ flirt."

His smile becomes guarded. “I see no harm in it — nothing qualitatively different from any other exercise that aids in sharpening one’s wit. But I will abstain from it if it is unwelcome.”

This time, it’s Margo’s turn to chortle. “You know, you could also consider memorizing poetry, or do multiplications in your head instead. But, sure, by all means, knock yourself out. Should I add you to my training schedule? I’m sure I can squeeze in a ‘wit sharpening’ slot, right between pummeling Commander Rutherford with snowballs, and trying not to poison myself at Master Adan’s behest.”

Solas’s gaze turns serious, all traces of his earlier playfulness dissipated. “Do strive to stay in one piece while we are away. There is the matter of our appointment.”

"Maybe it'll even go better than the last round of experimentation."

The elf frowns in mild vexation. "One hopes." Then his expression softens. "I... do enjoy our talks." 

On impulse, Margo brushes her fingertips against the back of his hand. His fingers twitch, then capture hers, briefly, before letting go.

Margo stuffs her hands into her pockets. Thank you, dreamworld, for providing them. “Don’t forget about the pastry.”

Solas’s expression turns speculative. “I wonder what you might think of frilly cakes…”

Before she has time to inquire whether frilly cakes and éclairs share any similarities, Margo wakes up for good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by griffons and frilly cakes. Now, imagine a frilly cake (I picture them as macarons).
> 
> Next up: With friends like these...


	12. Nested Dolls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo makes some new friends, give or take.

“No, no, no! Step to the side when you lunge. See how you're open to a pummel strike here... or here?" The great bearded menace proceeds to demonstrate what a pommel strike to the clavicle might feel like under less controlled circumstances. To this end, he grabs ahold of Margo’s forearm – conveniently extended, practice dagger and all – and he gives it a casual little jerk, which has the unhappy effect of bringing the crunchy part of her shoulder in close contact with the clubby part of his sword. Margo greets this with a displeased “oof.” "If this were a real fight, you'd have dropped your weapon and it would be over. Step, jab, step, regroup — don't leave your arm out like that, keep it close to the body. Good. Come at me again.”

This time, Margo dives under the bear's sword arm, and scuttles out of the way, trying to get a good kidney stab in before her opponent has the chance to permanently disable her with some other kind of “symbolic” death blow.

She doesn’t get far. Warden Blackwall, defying all known laws of physics concerning the relationship between mass and velocity, sweeps out with his foot. Margo anticipates the move and jumps back, narrowly avoiding being tripped up, but the accursed bear uses her own backward momentum to tackle her with some kind of wrestling move. He dumps her in the nearest snowbank.

All to the slow clapping of the giant Qunari, and to Sera’s rather licentious whistle.

“Well, Beardy, this time it took you a whole five minutes to get her on her back. I say that’s an improvement!”

Margo, still ensconced in her snow pile, launches a counteroffensive with a quick flurry of snowballs. Sera dodges in time, but doesn't account for the bow on her back, and the snowball splits in half, cut by the bowstring. The other two projectiles connect — one crashes against Blackwall’s breastplate and sprays up into his beard, and the other breaks against the Qunari's horn. Margo is fairly certain that the only reason she manages to hit the two warriors in the first place is that they were simply not expecting such immature duplicity from her. Sera picks up the two halves of the bisected snowball, and starts sculpting them into something distinctly R-rated.

“Not bad.” The Iron Bull wipes off the snow from his head as if the very nature of the substance offends him deeply. “If these were actual grenades, you’d have two injured opponents, and one missing a face. Or a beard, anyway. Don’t know if there’s any kind of face under there.”

Sera, in the meantime, squints at her handiwork. "Snitties? No. Snests? Bleargh. Snoobies!" She augments one of the training dummies with her take on snow sculptures. “Anyway, still shite at close combat. Oooh! Unless faking it! Rolling around with Beardy all close and personal like...” Sera starts making kissy noises until the aforementioned Warden deposits the archer into the same snow bank.

“Trying to beat some kind of personal record there, big guy?” the Qunari queries.

Taken individually, the new additions to the Inquisition’s ranks seem like perfectly reasonable people — safe, perhaps, for Sera. But when combined together, some unholy chemical reaction takes place, and the level of trash talk devolves from whatever regular army banter one might expect in your average, run of the mill barracks, to something only seen among twelve year old boys with a sugar high.

Over the week that passed since their return from the Hinterlands, the physical consequences of Margo's reenactment of Humpty Dumpty slowly dissipated. Either she got ridiculously lucky, or Thedas’s combination of magic and alchemy completely skews the parameters of what normal mortality and life expectancy might look like. Still. Though Solas fixed the majority of the damage, the stiffness and muscle aches — not to mention the absolutely maddening subcutaneous itch, which Margo attributed to the healing process — proved enough of a distraction that she finally submitted herself to Adan's experimental plans. The alchemist, having delivered a rather long and detailed lecture on proper safety precautions when scaling crumbling ramparts, brought out a new set of alchemy books. “We need to improve the healing tonics anyway,” he offered by way of an explanation, clearly happy now that said improvement could be tested with the help of a willing guinea pig.

Whatever might be said of Evie, the kid has been busy. Blackwall, Sera, and the Qunari joined the cause all in the span of two weeks. According to Harding’s grapevine — which, from what Margo can tell, is really more of an industrial-sized orchard with an adjacent winery — the Inquisitorial quartet went off to court yet another addition, an Orlesian high-society mage with the discouraging moniker of “Madame de Fer.” Whether the label is meant to suggest their prospective ally’s strong endorsement of economic austerity measures, evoke her similarity with the medieval torture device (which Margo has always thought to be a juicer designed with a vampire customer in mind), or simply refer to a penchant for heavy metal, none of it strikes Margo as particularly auspicious

At least they’re all still alive. From everything she heard about Orlais, Margo has a strong suspicion that attending Orlesian high society salons while dead would be considered gauche, and quite possibly very last season. Then again, since there have been no repeat visits from Solas during her excursions into the Fade, she can't confirm the veracity of any of the rumors first hand. And it isn’t that she is feeling outright worried about it, but...

Once she finally manages to identify the exact nature of the emotion, Margo emits an exasperated grunt — almost spilling the potion she is working on — and proceeds to smack her forehead with the heel of her palm, on the slim hope that this will realign her clearly addled brain. Because the structure of feeling is a bit too similar to waiting for that text message or phone call (except, in dream form), and she is too old for this shit and has better things to do. No way. Warm and fuzzies are all well and good. But not this. She’s not about to start pining. Or languishing. Or any other 19th century Victorian affliction. Hellmouth can freeze over first. Or spit out yodeling marmots with a penchant for Swiss chocolate. Or both.

So Margo does what any accidental body snatcher with an emotional problem to actively ignore would do: she decides to churn virtue from necessity, and make new friends.

The Qunari is first. After the fifth time she “accidentally” passes by his tent on her way to the forge on entirely fabricated pretenses, he calls after her. “If you want to gawk, Blondie, do us both a favor and gawk properly. Your running around is giving me a headache.”

Margo winces — no one likes to be called out on their bullshit — but she decides that she might as well take the bull by the horns, as it were.

“I’m sorry.” She approaches. It’s like one of those optical distortions, whereby the Homo Minotauricus in the rearview mirror is most certainly larger than he appears. And has pointier horns. “I’m Margo. You are Qunari, correct?”

The giant nods. "The Iron Bull. What's your role here, Blondie? By the dress, I'd say one of Leliana's people, though you don't move like one.”

Margo tenses, but her contusion story rolls off the tongue readily enough. "So I guess for now, I'm Master Adan's aid," she adds.

The Qunari accepts her explanation with a nod, though not before a strange little pause. "Seen it happen. Explains why you were gawking. Never seen one of us before, or can't remember whether you have?"

Margo shrugs. "Either way, the effect is the same."

"All right, Blondie." The Bull sighs a bit theatrically. "I can see you wanna ask something. What is it?"

Margo takes the invitation at face value and proceeds to pepper the Qunari with a slew of rather nosy cultural questions. She gets a series of more or less detailed answers, which leave her with the impression that the Qun is what would have happened if George Orwell had read a lot of pop Buddhism before writing _1984_.

“You know, this is very gracious of you.” It seems only polite to thank the fellow. “It’s not that often that one gets an invitation to openly stare and then ask invasive questions. I do hope dragons are also this accommodating.”

This gets the giant to guffaw. "Never seen a dragon either, huh? They're not much for talking." He launches into an enthusiastic lecture on how to kill said dragons, regardless of how talkative they may or may not be.

From there, they somehow get to the relative merits of plant versus animal-derived poisons, and from there it’s not exactly a fast route to friendship, but at least they both agree that the other person has their priorities straight.

Blackwall turns out reasonably friendly too, and Margo thinks it’s mostly because he’s a little lonely, and because her erstwhile broken state earned her sympathy points. He keeps volunteering for the odd manual labor jobs around the camp, and, having noticed this commendable trait, Master Adan sends Margo to recruit the Warden to help haul the new, intimidatingly large ingredient mill from the smithy to the apothecary. “Go use your feminine wiles,” he instructs, and waves his hand at the door.

As it turns out, no feminine wiles are required, since the Warden is more than happy to lend a hand. They talk about the merits — or rather the lack thereof — of most restorative draughts, and Blackwall reveals that he has a terrible time with the standard elfroot decoction.

“It is pretty bitter,” Margo clucks sympathetically, trying to keep the amusement out of her voice.

“It’s fucking vile, is what it is,” the Warden corrects.

Margo grins. “I can try to brew you a special batch that neutralizes some of the taste, if you want.”

It’s impossible to actually tell what his facial expression might be behind all that lush growth, but, based on the eyes, she thinks it's surprised amusement? Maybe?

“If you do, I’ll trade you melee lessons for it.”

“Deal,” Margo nods, and they shake hands.

Sera turns out to be the hardest one by far.

“Aaaand, shite, you’re an elf. Are you one of them elfie ones? No face tats, right, but that don't mean you're not an arse. Like that bald fella, whatshisname. 'Our empire had advanced magics while humans were still wearing furs.’ Blah, blah, blah, lot of good that did. Pish.”

Margo furrows her brow trying to follow all this. “What’s an elfie elf?” she finally asks. That seems safe enough.

“You know. Like it's something you wanna wear. History, yeah, but you're playing dress-up with it.”

“I am definitely not that,” Margo volunteers carefully. Primarily because she has a very slim idea what "elfiness" looks like beyond the phenotypical differences, let alone how one would go about "wearing" it. But she does make a mental note of learning more about the internal divisions and politics of elven identity. It seems like it's the least she can do if she’s going to inhabit this body for the foreseeable future.

“Ah, well. Might be alright, then.”

And this is how they end up where they are, which is to say, with snow in uncomfortable places. Every day, one of them helps Margo “re-train” her skills, in exchange for very specific, customized alchemical preparations. Ironically, all three do not — or pretend they do not — realize that the two others are trading their mentorship for precisely the same favor. Sera wants an ointment that keeps her toes warm, but isn’t greasy on application because “Ew, squishy toes!” For Blackwall’s elfroot aversion, Margo simply uses molasses in the final mixture.

Eventually, the Qunari makes his own request as well. The skin under his eyepatch chafes in Haven’s cold weather, so when he flips up the black leather strip for Margo to take a look, she winces sympathetically. She whips up the ointment the same day. That seems to get the giant more firmly in her camp. “All right, Blondie. I’ll help you work with poisoned weapons. Once you make it past Big Guy.” She does wonder whether he would be quite so magnanimous if he knew that she used Auntie’s recipe for diaper rash cream as the foundation for the salve.

***

The tavern is packed, hot, and reeks of cabbage stew. They settle at a table next to Harding, Jan, and a handful of other scouts, fresh from patrol in some questionable place called The Fallow Mire. Harding makes a sour face at the memory. “Maker's Breath, that place is foul."

“What’s in the Fallow Mire?” Margo asks.

“Dead shit. Lots and lot of dead shit.” For once, Jan looks too disgusted to attempt to chase tail. The entire company has a kind of lingering decomposition smell — faint, but still there. “Also, Avvar. Dead shit and Avvar. I don’t know how I offended the spymaster to get this assignment.”

Sera, already done with her second bowl of cabbage soup, comes back with another round of beers, and a pretzel she somehow managed to sweet-talk Flissa into giving her. “Dead things, boring shite, blah, blah, blah. What are we playing? ‘Truth or dare’ or ‘who would you rather’?”

Blackwall and Harding groan in annoyance simultaneously.

Margo gets up. “And that’s my cue to go make some lyrium potions for the impending new mage.”

“Not so fast.”

She gives Iron Bull a dirty look. Et tu, Brutus?

“I’ll start. Blondie. Who would you rather, a Vint, or a Qunari?”

Margo shoots him a quick look, trying to gauge what’s behind the question. And while her other table companions all sport a predictable range of expressions — from mildly exasperated to amused to curious — the horned mountain is hiding a very attentive look behind the casual mask. Margo wonders, not for the first time, how many practicing spymasters there are in the Inquisition.

“I’m outa here,” she states with great dignity.

“Well, I think we all know the answer to that one anyway,” Jan winks.

Harding shoots Margo an apologetic look. Aha. So Maile’s legacy is making the rounds. Well, good to know.

“S'easy, Blondie. Qunari. Cuz 'rrrraar!' Right?” Sera looks around, her brows drawn in puzzlement. She genuinely looks like she hasn’t heard any of the circulating rumors.

Margo’s heartbeat accelerates. Not that this is catastrophic, but she would rather extricate herself from the uncomfortable direction of the conversation — or, minimally, to control its unfolding.

She forces herself to sit. This is the problem with this world. Everyone seems to have secrets within secrets, like whole nested dolls worth of secrets that sometimes aren’t even yours to keep. Such as, for example, what she now suspects about Evie, an unpleasant little hunch that has been steadily gnawing at her, all the more so because she can neither share it, nor verify it safely.

“Fine, fine.” Her relenting is met with a few hoots. “A Vint or a Qunari, was that the question?”

She’s stalling of course, and a quick look at the Iron Bull tells her that he knows this.

He nods. “That’s right, Blondie. Simple, really.”

“Ok, what are the other parameters at play? What is their respective training?”

Bull cocks an eyebrow at this — the scarred one above his bad eye — but he humors her. “Lets even the odds, and say they’re both mages.”

Margo suppresses a smile, because, of course, he’s just given her the perfect out. Thank the Heavens for Adan indulging her reading habits on Theodosian politics. “Then, I'd pick the Qunari.”

Jan frowns. “Wait, what? Why”

“Because at least he wouldn’t talk your ear off,” she grins, miming the act of sewing her mouth shut.

This earns her a hearty set of guffaws, especially from the women at the table. Margo can’t help but sigh inwardly, an unpleasant sense of foreboding settling in the pit of her stomach. She is not sure that the image of the tough as nails, hardened operative that Maile has left as her legacy is one she wants to wear. And the irony, of course, is that Maile herself was not that.

“And now, I'm off. Sera, do you want my turn?”

Sera grins. “Blackwall. Lady Montilyet or Seeker Pentaghast?”

On her way to the door, she hears Blackwall choke on his beer. "Maker's balls, Sera, I’m not answering that.”

Margo makes her way to the apothecary, but she foregoes the potion making in favor of an early night. She even has an excuse. She's had ample time to mull over the Evie problem, and she tells herself that what she really needs is someone to talk to about it. Right. Just… someone to bounce ideas off. Nothing more.

She closes her eyes.

***

She is in Solas’s cabin. Barely enough light filters through the window to etch out the contours of the furniture, and the house feels empty, long left unoccupied.

Solas is sitting on the bed, elbows on his knees, his gaze trained on the floor — in a position so similar to the one she remembers from their unfortunate ritual that Margo almost instinctively reaches out to him. Her heart does a painful little skip, and she tells herself that it is just the unexpected surprise of the Fade summons actually connecting.

“Hello, da’elgar,” Solas says quietly without looking up.

After a moment of hesitation, she walks over to the bed and takes a seat next next to him. “Solas, are you all right? You seem…” She can’t quite capture the words to describe his mood. It is not a sadness, exactly, but a kind of ancient melancholy that seems almost abstract, rather than prompted by anything specific. It feels profoundly unmendable.

He looks up at her, his eyes dark in the gloom. “I am fine. Simply tired. But you have come with a question. Something ailing your thoughts. Is it about the Herald?”

Margo looks at him, and wonders how he knows, and then of course, wonders whether this same issue has been ailing him as well. “Yes. I can’t quite decide what we're supposed to do about it. As in, does she know? Is there even anything to know? Do we confront her? Do we tell the others? Cassandra, Cullen…? And what if she doesn’t know, then where exactly does that leave us?”

She sighs, immensely grateful that she can share this festering ball of questions with someone who knows about them, and knows about her. Since their absence, her life has been further devolving into a careful waltz on treacherous grounds — "look casual, dear, oh and mind the snakes." It is a relief to put her guard down.

The elf nods. “But it is not your secret to share, little spirit, is it? Let us say you tell Cassandra, or any of the others. Then would that not alienate the girl from you? She does seem to place a lot of trust in her relationship with you. Do you truly wish to betray that trust? Or, if you confront her about your suspicions, how do you think she might react? She is young and sheltered, not accustomed to taking responsibility for herself.” Solas sighs, then turns to face her. He brings his hand to her face, his knuckles brushing along the curve of her cheekbone. Margo freezes, mesmerized. Slowly, his palm cups her jaw, his thumb tracing the contour of her lips...

Something isn’t… right. Subtle. But…

Margo jumps up and away from the bed, a spasm of ancient, sticky terror prickling the skin of her arms. She has always been of the school of thought that Medieval monks allegedly yelling things like “Away with you, Devil!” or any such dramatic demands for said evil entity to absquatulate would be ineffectual at best, and induce fits of hilarity from the entity in question at worst.

Now, she really does understand why the monks might have been compelled to such pointless exclamations.

“You’re not Solas,” she states, trying to suppress the revulsion at the gothic horror of the close-but-imperfect imitation.

Not-Solas inclines its head, and its eyes are twinkling with humor — an intimately familiar expression. “No? That is very much a matter of perspective. Tell me, little spirit, what do you need from the wolf — or, really, not even the wolf itself, but the shadow of its shadow?”

Margo narrows her eyes at this strange appellation. Didn’t Baba make a similar sort of lupine reference?

“What could you possibly be hoping for? Companionship? A nice chat, perhaps? Someone to confide in? To counsel you through your uncertainties? Ah, and a little roll in the hay, maybe?” It laughs, and it sounds so much like Solas, but too loud on the high tones. “We could do any of that and more. No strings attached. A… private little secret. Because, little spirit, it is time you faced the truth. He is clearly occupied elsewhere. Do you think he would spare you a thought? Whereas _I_... am at your disposal.”

Oh fuck this very much, she doesn’t need this. “Thanks. Not interested. Go carpetbag somewhere else.”

The thing laughs again, and it's all Margo can do not to scream — just to drown out the sound of it, its perverse little dissonance.

“I am getting better, am I not? You like your wolf melancholy. That gets you to come sit down, to offer consolation. And I remember you like him a little forward, too.”

It flicks its fingers, and Margo sways under a wave of lust so strong it is practically sickening.

“I learn fast, little spirit. Next time, you might not be able to tell the difference.” It gets up, covers the distance between them, and presses its lips to her ear. “Next time, you might not care.”

She does scream then, for lack of a better option.

There is a shift in the quality of the dream, as if the Fade folds on itself — the beginning of some cosmic origami — and Not-Solas dissolves into a puff of purplish vapor.

She straightens slowly on wobbly legs, the residual vertigo still pulling at the pit of her stomach. And then there is a steadying hand on her shoulder.

Margo turns and sees the elf. Again.

She peers into his face, trying to find the subtle distortions — like something else with a slightly different bone structure wearing his skin. But it truly does feel like Solas. Except, she doesn’t trust herself to know. Not for sure.

Solas's expression is tense, but when he speaks, his tone is curt. “What happened?”

The temptation to dissolve into sobs and cling to him for comfort is almost overwhelming. Except, she supposes they’re not quite on those terms either — which, considering the latest development, is probably for the best. Instead, Margo straightens her shoulders. “My nice new friend Imshael paid another visit.” As Solas's gaze darkens, Margo puts her hands on her hips, and cocks an eyebrow. “And when exactly are you lot coming back, anyway?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by nappy cream.
> 
> Next up: reunions


	13. On Being and Essence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo reunites with the team, has a discussion about the nature of spirits, and enjoys some pastries.

Instead of her usual location in the Frozen Cartographic Tent of Doom, Spymaster Leliana turns out to be in the temple’s main hall. If Margo didn’t know any better, she would have to assume that Torquemada is actually enjoying a spot of normal human conversation. Her two interlocutors are Mother Giselle — who is indeed sporting some pretty underwhelming Chantry robes (though their plainness pales in comparison with the much more aggressively ugly headdress) — and a new arrival: a statuesque, impeccably dressed woman with closely cropped hair and a stunningly imperious expression.

This, Margo assumes, is the mythical Orlesian mage.

As she makes her way towards the trio — and she’s only dragging her feet a little — the mage turns, considers her from under slightly hooded, perfectly highlighted eyelids with an expression that leaves no doubt as to Margo’s taxonomic status (a heretofore unknown, yet not particularly interesting species of mold) — and gestures at her. “How fortunate you are here, dear. Run along and fetch me a cup of tea from the kitchens, will you? It is terribly cold in this keep. Oh, and mind you do not oversweeten it.” At this, the mage turns to Leliana. “Do your servants take liberties with the sugar as well? I heard this fascinating theory once about the origins of the practice…”

Margo blinks. Right. Do you take one or two spoons of raw class antagonism with your morning coffee?

Torquemada, to Margo’s utter shock, has the grace to look a little embarrassed by this. “Court Enchanter Vivienne, please meet one of... my agents.” She hesitates for a few seconds, clearly looking for a way to phrase whatever’s coming next more diplomatically. “The Inquisition is a military operation, and, as you will see, we deploy our people in accordance with their skills. Of course, plenty of elves are employed in a supporting capacity, but I believe you will find that things are somewhat different from Orlais.”

Margo files away this sociopolitical tidbit for future reference. How, exactly, are elves treated in Orlais?

The Iron Lady cocks a delicately tweezed eyebrow. “Of course, my dear. And my apologies, agent, I meant no offense. But surely military customs are not a reason to forego the benefits of civilization entirely? If you wish for the nobility of both countries to accord the Inquisition the attention and deference it is due, it is good to follow some simple principles of, as we say in Orlais, ‘comme-il-faut.’”

Torquemada swallows all of that with a mildly soured expression. “Of course, Court Enchanter, you are certainly correct. I hope you will forgive our occasional failures at proper hospitality — we are, alas, stretched a little thin.” The spymaster gestures at an elven girl in plainclothes at the other end of the colonnade, and orders her to fetch tea. “To the matter at hand, agent. How is your health?”

Margo tries to determine whether this is a trick question. “Much improved, thank you for asking,” she volunteers cautiously.

“Excellent. I am told you have acquitted yourself well in the Hinterlands, despite the accident. Fortunate that Solas has a remarkable facility with healing magic, is it not? A curious skill, for a mage who is not, according to his own testimony, a spirit healer. Of course, Mother Giselle’s assistants will now contribute their expertise as well, for which we are deeply grateful.” Torquemada smiles pleasantly at the clergywoman. Mother Giselle inclines her head in acknowledgement, and the spymaster returns her attention to Margo. “We are hearing troubling news about Avvar unrest it the Fallow Mire, in addition to the reports on the epidemic. I thought an alchemist’s presence would be beneficial, and I cannot, as you can imagine, spare Master Adan.” She pauses. “You leave tomorrow at dawn. Scout Harding will assemble the rest of your patrol. Do consult with Lady Trevelyan, and report to Harding — I can spare whomever the Herald does not need for her own tasks.” Tirade delivered, Torquemada gives her a curt nod, and Margo surmises that she has been dismissed.

The Orlesian mage smiles charmingly. “An excellent idea. Too many idle hands make for a rather uncouth ambiance.”

Margo walks away, humming The Internationale.

Fallow Mire. Sounds unpleasant. What was it that Jan was saying yesterday? Dead shit? Who doesn’t love dead shit...

And then, as she exits the temple, she breaks into a huge grin as she spots Varric’s outrageously bright red kaftan right by the requisitions tent.

This means that they’re all back.

Varric spots her almost as quickly. “Prickly! As I live and breathe — and so do you, as it turns out. Should change your nickname to ‘tumbleweed.’”

Margo groans — mostly to suppress the desire to ask Varric about Thedosian plant taxonomies — but the dwarf is already chortling. “I’m just messing with you.” He walks over, and, to Margo surprise, opens his arms wide for a hug. She’s more than happy to oblige, even if the dwarf’s head does only come up to her chest. But the whole operation isn’t too awkward, and soon they are both grinning at each other and slapping each other’s backs. Nothing like surviving necro-slugs and inexplicable ill luck together to make you feel right at home.

“How was Orlais? How’s Evie?” Margo asks, wondering if she can rope the rogue into sharing breakfast before the day’s labors start in earnest.

“Orlais was mostly a cockup,” Varric sighs. He quickly fills her in on the Chantry’s reaction and the bizarre behavior of the Templars. So. The military arm decided to punch the head that wielded it. No surprise there — military arms tend to do that every once in a while.

“Evie is doing well — the kid’s starting to get into the swing of things. And she’s so damn cute that everyone wants to just sort of… fuss over her and ply her with sweets. So, as you’ve seen, we’ve picked up some volunteers.” Varric’s eyes narrow in a sly look. “What do you think of our new troops?”

Margo tells him about her training sessions with Iron Bull, Blackwall, and Sera. The dwarf chuckles at her telegraphic descriptions. “You like the new mage?”

She shrugs. “Hoity-toity, but if she’s effective… I suppose that’s all that matters. What do you think of her?”

“I think it’s good that Chuckles will get a break every once in a while. Evie, though, seems to just adore our new Grande Dame — go figure.” Another ironic look. “Speaking of Chuckles, have you seen him yet?”

Margo shakes her head.

“Well, don't let me keep you, then. And go catch up with the kid, too. I think she’s been dying to tell someone about Orlais’ latest fashion, and, strictly between us, I’m afraid the Seeker isn’t the best audience for that.”

***

The kid is in the midst of what appears to be a deeply awkward conversation with Commander Rutherford. Margo pauses, surveying the two from a distance. Oddly enough, most of the awkwardness is emanating from the commander himself — he shuffles in place, rubbing the back of his neck every time Evie asks a question.

When she spots Margo, Evie emits a little squeal — to Cullen’s completely flummoxed expression — and rushes over. Before Margo can say “oof”, Evie’s got her in a bear hug. “You’re fine! You’re really all right! Ahhh! I’m so happy! Solas’s magic is amazing! You’re amazing! You are fine now, right? I can hug you? It doesn’t hurt?”

Margo returns the hug, and they do a side to side shamble, all under General Pauldrons’ increasingly discomfited gaze. For a brief, very ungenerous moment, Margo wonders whether the commander’s discomfort has to do with the social implications of a friendship between a human noble and a random elf underling.

“New perfume?” Margo asks, giving the kid a quick sniff. She smells fancy — musk and ambergris, rose, a hint of star anise. Just the right balance of heady and whimsical. Also, likely expensive. She wonders how Evie got it. A new suitor, perhaps? Or, more likely, a present from the Iron Lady.

“Yes! Margo, Val Royaux is incredible! You should have seen it! You would have loved the buildings, it’s all these soaring structures, but they’re delicate, not like we build in the Free Marches. And the shops, and there are these outdoor… taverns? Inns? Parlours? And people just sit outside and talk about literature, and the arts. And it’s so warm!”

Margo smiles at her. “Maybe next time. Anyway, you’ve been doing really well — good choice on Iron Bull and Blackwall. And Sera.”

Evie beams. “Yes! Iron Bull intimidates me very much, but actually, he’s nice if you talk to him. I mean, he might be nice if you don’t talk to him too. Not like he talks too much beyond, you know, ‘right behind ya, boss,’ but… What was I saying? Oh! And Warden Blackwall is … well, all right, he kind of intimidates me too, because the beard! But he’s really polite, and he seems like he really cares about helping people.” Margo chokes down a laugh at Evie’s description of the Warden as “polite.” The man swears like a sailor. Although, come to think of it, he does code-switch remarkably well, depending on who he’s talking to. “And Sera… well, Sera’s a little odd, but I like her. I think. Though I can’t always follow what she’s saying because it’s like all her sentences start with one thing, and end with another. Though I guess I do that too, so...”

“And there’s the Court Enchantress… Enchanter?”

“Yes!” Evie beams beatically. “Isn’t Vivienne amazing? She’s just so… classy. Composed? Combobulated? That’s not a word, is it? And she never talks too much, and everything she says is just right. Unlike me.” And at this, Evie giggles, and Margo finds herself unexpectedly happy that the kid no longer seems to be so self-conscious about her verbal mannerisms.

“I saw Varric. How did Cassandra and Solas do on the trip?”

Evie sighs. “Cassandra’s really worried and upset about the Templars, because Lord Seeker was a total…” She breaks into a stage whisper. “Asshat! Even though the Chantry was kinda rude too — anyway, everyone was very rude all around. And Solas… I think he sort of likes Val Royaux, but doesn’t want to let on.” She wrinkles her nose in amusement. “One morning, I spotted him in one of the really fancy bakeries on the upper levels. Did you know Val Royaux has levels? Like a cake? Wait, no, that’s not right. Cakes have layers. Anyway. Oh, right, Solas. Bakeries. So when I asked him, he said something really vague, like he was just taking a walk and seeing the sights. But I think he’s got a secret sweet tooth!”

Margo suppresses a chuckle — here is to hoping that the warm and fuzzies don’t have too obvious a physical manifestation — and winks at Evie. “I wouldn’t be all that surprised,” she volunteers.

Evie’s face turns serious. “You’re going off on patrol tomorrow, right? I heard the Fallow Mire is really creepy. You have to be careful, all right?”

Margo nods, and pats the girl on the shoulder. “Don’t you worry about me. What about you, what’s on your docket?”

At Evie’s puzzled expression, Margo quickly rephrases. Wrong colloquialism. “I mean, what’s your next step?”

Evie shrugs. “I guess we’re going to go to Redcliffe to speak with the mages. Cassandra thinks I could seal the Breach if only we can channel enough power into the mark, so I guess getting the mages on board would make sense. Although… well, there’s also the Templars, but I don’t see how they’d even want to talk to us, all things considered. I think Commander Cullen would rather have the Templars though.” Margo notices that Evie colors slightly at the mention of “Commander Cullen.” Uh-oh. Someone might be harboring a little crush. “Do you… Do you happen to know why he hates mages so much? I mean… he really doesn’t seem to like them. And… I don’t know. Not all mages are bad, right? Solas isn’t bad. And Vivienne isn’t bad…”

There’s something about Evie’s downcast expression that makes Margo wonder why Cullen’s apparent anti-mage attitude bothers her so much. “I don’t know, kiddo. You could just ask him. I’m sure he’d tell you.”

Evie’s eyes widen. “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly! What if it’s really personal?”

Margo smiles. “If it’s really personal he’ll either tell you as much, or he’ll evade, but either way, you won’t know until you try to find out.”

Evie sighs. “I guess there’s no point in coming up with fancy stories in my head about some kind of tragic past, right? It’s probably nothing really big. Like, maybe a mage stole his puppy once, or something.”

Margo nods encouragingly. “Right. And even if it is serious, then you should find out too. You want to know about the people you’re working with.”

“That’s true. I’m going to talk to Cassandra about who should be coming to Redcliffe. And then Scout Harding will take everyone else, and you should be very careful, because this Fallow Mire sounds really yucky, and…”

Margo chuckles. It does sound yucky, the kid’s absolutely right. “Sounds good. But you make sure you have a good team with you. See what Cassandra says.”

“Come by and have some fancy Orlesian tea with me after, when we’re all back?”

“I’d love to.” They part with one more hug. Evie scampers off, presumably to find the Seeker. Before Margo has the chance to trail back to the apothecary, Rutherford gestures at her.

Now that the kid is out of his immediate orbit, General Shoulderpads seems a lot more at ease. “How goes the training, agent? Have you fully recovered from your fall?”

“Much improved, Commander,” Margo smiles politely, leaving her affirmative noises deliberately vague, just in case he decides that her progress rate is suspicious. It buys her a second to observe the fellow. Despite the frigid temperatures, there is a fine sheen of perspiration over his forehead and temples — but he seems too pale for any recent exertion to account for the sweating.

Rutherford catches her looking, and his expression sheds some of its apparent amiability, leaving something hard-edged and cagey in its wake. “Glad to hear it. Don’t let me keep you, then.” He turns away and stalks off in the direction of a group of recruits.

Margo watches his back for a few seconds. Either General Pauldrons is ill, or he is coming off of something. Perhaps a drinking habit. Since his back offers no answers, she pivots on her heels, and walks back to the apothecary.

She hesitates next to Solas’s hut. He is not outside, and the door still seems bolted shut.

Her heart does a hard little thump, and Margo, with an unhappy little “hmpf”, forces herself to walk on by. She’s not about to go running all around the camp looking for him. Never go running after an elf, or a bus, to paraphrase one of Baba’s favorite sayings.

Master Adan is nowhere in sight, but there is a list the length of an arm (and also maybe part of a leg) on the worktable. There are potions for her to take along with them to the Mire, including a batch of formulas that she identifies as anti-infection prophylactics. There are also potions to be made to service Haven’s apparently ever expanding needs, and a whole range of lyrium-heavy preparations for Evie’s mission to Redcliffe.

Right. No wonder Master Adan’s in absentia. This is at least a day’s worth of labor. She uses a hefty piece of metal ore — iron, by the looks of it — to prop open Auntie’s compendium before settling into the tasks at hand.

By the time she is done with the prophylactics, the sky outside is dark, and Margo is out of powdered spindleweed. She sets a pot of water on the fire — Adan already knows about her amrita-pilfering habit, so no point in stopping now. The plant must contain some kind of stimulant, though Margo isn’t entirely sure whether it is caffeine, or something else.

Soon enough, the rhythm of the work absorbs all of her attention.

The knock on the door is drowned out by the clanking of the new ingredient mill. Which is why the stern “hello” that follows startles the living daylights out of her. Margo releases the metal crank with an undignified yelp and whirls around. “Agh! You scared the hell out of me!”

Solas — because, of course, who else would sneak up on her like he is floating around in a particularly mild-mannered rendition of Nosferatu — extends what is probably meant to be a conciliatory offering. Margo eyes it suspiciously.

The elf is holding a small wooden box, its polished top shimmering with condensation. “I had to keep them cool while on the road, in particular since our travels took longer than I had anticipated.”

“What is this?” Margo asks cautiously. The only thing she can think of that might require deep freezing is the unpleasant remains of an equally unpleasant creature, likely to be used in combination with “some fungus” to unexpected — and unpleasant — effects.

Solas lifts an eyebrow. “Have you forgotten your request, lethallan?”

Margo tries to remember when she requested unpleasant creaturely remains. She blinks. And then it hits. “You didn’t _actually_ get me éclairs, did you?”

Solas purses his lips, but the effort to hide the smile is not entirely successful, and it settles in his eyes instead.

There is something so delightfully pedestrian about the fact that he had to keep the damn pastries refrigerated, even if he did so with magic, that Margo breaks into a fit of completely undignified giggles. The elf observes her newfound hilarity with quiet amusement. She takes the box from him and sets it on the desk, before peeling off her work gloves and walking over to the hearth.

“Tea?” she offers. “The water should still be hot.”

Solas looks inexplicably chagrined by this proposal. “Thank you, but no. Though I appreciate the thought.”

“What do _you_ pair with pastries? Don’t tell me you eat them as is.”

“Hot water will suffice.”

Margo shrugs. “Suit yourself. Well, don’t just loom there, take a seat.”

He lowers himself into one of the chairs. Margo pours hot water into a set of mismatched receptacles and plops a few dessiccated amrita flowers into her own cup. She hands the other one to the elf, and settles across from him. “How did Orlais go?”

“As well as one might have expected. The Chantry and the Templars are too busy bickering to spare us more than a passing thought, although the rebel mages in Redcliffe seem willing to negotiate.”

Margo frowns. “These are the same rebel mages that are fighting with the Templars in the Hinterlands?”

“No. Those in Redcliffe are organized. Or as organized as they can be under the circumstances.”

Margo eyes the box. “May I?”

Solas inclines his head with a polite “certainly,” so she pries open the lid. “Macarons! Ok, not eclairs, but you found me macarons!”

Does this mean they have almonds in Thedas? Pistachios?

Solas looks both pleased and surprised at the implied culinary convergence. “Do you have something similar in your world?”

Margo extracts a pink, perfectly circular pastry, and pops the whole thing into her mouth. She nods as she chews. “Yup.” It comes out a little muffled. “They are almost identical. Though I wouldn’t have thought to put a spice into the filling. It’s got a bit of a bite to it, doesn’t it?”

He nods. “I am quite fond of the spice, actually. It is a nice surprise against the sweetness of the dough, no?” He lifts one of the green ones from the box and bites into it.

The next half a minute is spent chewing. “Thank you. This was… thoughtful of you. I was partially joking about dragging back baked goods all the way from Orlais.” She does feel a little guilty about it, come to think of it.

Solas smiles. “To watch you enjoy them was certainly worth the effort. Ah… you have…” He gestures at her, but when she fails to interpret whatever his hand movements are meant to convey, he leans in, and, after a brief hesitation, sweeps his thumb across her lower lip. “A crumb,” he offers by way of an explanation.

Margo summarily ignores the sudden heat in her cheeks — and the elf’s faux innocent look — in favor of another macaron. When in doubt, eat pastries.

“You are slated to leave for the Fallow Mire tomorrow, are you not?” Solas inquires.

That gets the warm and fuzzies to behave, and quickly. “Yes. I hear it’s unpleasant.”

“It is. Avvar tribes aside, an epidemic has devastated the region, and in the absence of anyone to burn the dead…” He trails off.

“What happens if you don’t burn the dead?” Margo has the sneaking suspicion that “dead shit” is about to take a foray into truly exceptional unpleasantness.

“In places where the Veil is thin, spirits might attempt to cross it. They latch onto the dead in their effort to join the physical world.” His expression turns grim. “A flawed arrangement that benefits neither spirit nor those still living.”

Margo almost chokes on her tea. “Let me get this straight. They turn corpses into zombies?”

“I am not familiar with this term. What is its meaning?”

Now is probably not the time to explain the colonial history of the concept, so Margo sets her cup aside, sudden queasiness gripping her stomach. Just like Thedas to have zombies on its roster of nastiness. “You know — shambling, groaning, eating brains?”

“Perhaps not all three, though similar in principle.” His mouth is set in a grim line. “Which is why I am coming with you, provided the Herald is willing to spare me.”

“Wouldn’t you be needed in Redcliffe?”

Solas avails himself of another cake — somehow the topic of zombies doesn’t seem to be spoiling his appetite. “Court Enchanter Vivienne is undoubtedly much better suited for the kind of politicking that will be required at Redcliffe. And I have asked the Herald to give me a leave of absence for the next mission, now that we are able to afford it.”

The whole prospect of traipsing through “dead shit and Avvars” suddenly seems less bleak.

“There is the other matter, however,” Solas suddenly adds, his face serious. “Your issue with Imshael. We cannot leave it as is.”

Margo schools her features into something approximating polite neutrality. Their casual banter is easy and pleasant enough, but there is the constant backdrop of unacknowledged complexity, just out of view, like an iceberg in dark waters. The memory of the imperfect doppelgänger makes her skin crawl. “It seems to have taken an interest,” she finally volunteers. “Hell if I know why.”

“What face did it choose this time, lethallan?”

Her effort at neutrality is truly heroic. “Same old, same old.”

Solas’s nostrils flare, but he keeps his expression in check otherwise. He stands abruptly, and begins to pace. “The first step is to return your memories. While I fear this may not solve the larger problem, it is still the correct course of action, and it is my hope that it will allow you to become less noticeable to other spirits.”

Margo nods. Whatever maximizes her chances against the demon. “Are there other things we might do?” she asks.

He doesn’t respond right away. Instead, he settles back into his chair and looks at her with a troubled expression. At length, he nods. “There is…” He pauses. The echoes of the now familiar internal conflict play out beneath the carefully crafted neutral mask. “There are,” he corrects “two possible solutions.”

Margo gestures in encouragement. Solas gives her another one of his long, inscrutable looks before turning away, as if suddenly preoccupied with some arcane alchemical ingredient on the shelf. She doesn’t think it’s the bag of nug droppings that’s got him so fascinated, however.

“To understand, you must learn more about spirits. The nature of the Fade is different from the waking side. Unlike physical beings, spirits are defined by what they are, and not by what they do. Because the Fade responds to the waking world’s intentions, a spirit’s essence is fragile. Therefore, an alteration is neither simple change, nor, should it go poorly, a correctable misstep. The spirit’s previous form ceases to be and what arises in its stead is different.”

Margo frowns, trying to follow the trail of his explanation. So, for spirits, identity is defined not through behavior, but through something else — what the elf calls essence. Some type of ontological status. “So what defines a spirit is a kind of fundamental intent, maybe? Or a collection of intents?”

Solas’s eyebrows shoot up, as if he hadn’t expected her to arrive to this conclusion quite so easily. He nods once. “That is as close to the heart of the matter as I can explain, yes.”

Interesting. Margo turns the new model over in her head. This would mean that in the Fade, one would have a very different theory of mind, because presumably one could access intent directly if one knew where — or how — to look. “So how can one recognize this… defining intent?”

“Mages do this all the time when they transact with spirits. It is possible to be misled, of course, since the Fade helps the mind reconcile what it perceives as paradoxes. As you are not a mage, you cannot reach out to a spirit in the same way as I would. But I could reach out to you such that you might identify me with a degree of certainty.”

A Fade caller ID. “Excellent. This sounds like a solid approach to me.”

There is a tell-tale tightness in his jaw. “This is not something I would wish to undertake lightly.” He appears ill at ease, as if he is trying to will himself into an emotional shape that no longer fits him comfortably. “There is another, arguably simpler solution. And likely the wiser one.” He hesitates again, but, at this point, Margo can make an educated guess as to where this is going, and she has absolutely no intention of making it easier for him. “Our… association. I would not wish for it to end in tragedy. It is not too late to step back. No harm has been done.”

Margo offers him her best “skeptical academic” look. “Wait a second. Do you mean to tell me — after we just went over how the nature of spirits is something rooted in _being_ , rather than in _doing_ — that this ancient desire demon or whatever the hell it is is going to simply desist because… what? We pretend we don’t know each other? Nothing to see here, move along?”

He frowns. “If there is nothing for it to exploit…” And at that moment, he looks to Margo almost as naïve as his unfinished utterance suggests.

“Solas.” She smiles around a sudden pang of sadness, redirecting her gaze to her cup. “These things… don’t work that way. At least not for me.” Apparently, as far as the elf is concerned, it’s brutal intellectual honesty, or bust. In for a penny… “Emotions aren’t weeds. You can’t just rip them out, roots and all, and toss them on the compost pile. And even if I could, what would remain… would not be the same as before. You pluck out a plant, and the shape it took is left behind.” She ventures a glance. There is an odd intensity to his expression, but beyond that, she cannot read him. Margo sighs. “If Imshael is what he is — a spirit that latches onto people’s desires, broadly defined — then why would he change course? Would he not simply adapt his strategy, exploit whatever new opening arises?” She leans forward. “Solas, that thing… It seems to understand every little nuance. Or insecurity. I’m not even sure that it is evil, in the simplest sense of the term. It almost feels like it wants what anyone wants: that its ‘target’, if that is the appropriate term, might make the choice with full awareness.” She pauses, trying to formulate her thoughts without devolving into moral absolutes. “I don’t even know if its toying is meant maliciously. That it would harm me, in the end, isn’t necessarily its purpose, but that doesn’t change the likely outcome.” She lets her gaze drift to the work station — the memory of the other “Solas” a sudden, vivid nightmare. “And I think it’s learning. If something isn’t done, one day I might not be able to tell the difference — to know it from you.”

“I… see.” There is a change to the elf’s expression, as if a crucial insight finally dawns on him. “And since you do not have full control of yourself in the Fade… If we…” Solas swallows. “There might be a time when you might not wish to draw that distinction,” he concludes, expression utterly horrified. “Oh, da’nas.” Almost a plea. “With enough time, perhaps it will lose interest.” He pauses. “Or you will.”

Margo exhales quietly, trying to slow down her rushing heartbeat. She doesn’t have “enough time.” But she can’t force him. If this is what will help him sleep better at night, then she supposes she can’t fault him. “Is this what you want? To walk away? In all honesty.”

He meets her gaze. Opens his mouth to respond. Hesitates. And then looks like he’s being ripped asunder from the inside, and Margo feels for him, but she does not retract her question. It is not her place to try to sway him one way or another. His side of the decision does not belong to her.

Solas lets out a quiet breath. “It is what I should want.” And then, a lot firmer. “However, it is not.” For a brief moment, his lips quirk in a rueful, surprised little smile, as if he suddenly realizes that his mouth is not fully following orders from headquarters. He recovers quickly. “We will take the other route, then. But I must meet you in the Fade for that.”

Margo clasps her hands in her lap, trying to will the slight tremor away. Damn sweaty palms. She has one more request. They are not out of tricky waters, as far as she can tell. One iceberg, coming right up. “Solas, I do not trust myself in the Fade right now. I have some facility with entering it, but very little control. Dreams always seem to help the mind gloss over the paradoxes and contradictions, as you said yourself.” She orders the impending fit of vapors to kindly fuck off. Ok. She can do this. Out with it. “I would want an added layer of security, as it were.”

“What are you asking, lethallan?” And when she checks his expression, Margo almost laughs, because he clearly doesn’t have the slightest idea where she’s going with this.

“For you to be able to wake me up if something goes wrong.”

He seems confused at that. “I can easily wake us both from the Fade…”

She shakes her head and stifles a frustrated groan. She’s being a child again. This shouldn’t be so difficult. “Not if I get lost somewhere. You need to be able to wake me up from this side too.”

The realization dawns on him. Solas looks… flummoxed? A little scandalized? Plain old nervous? Difficult to tell… “Didn’t you mention you sleep in old ruins? Am I seriously a worse alternative to giant spiders?”

That gets him out of his embarrassment, and he chuckles quietly. “If you leave something for the spiders, they are usually content to leave you in peace,” he trails, and it’s definitely… playful. So they somehow managed to get on safer emotional terrain. Yippee ki-yay.

“Should have gotten me more pastries, then,” Margo grins.

Solas’s smile reaches all the way to his eyes — and then it dissolves under the weight of some other, graver thought. He looks out of the window. “If we are to do this, it would be preferable if we are not interrupted by your perennially inebriated mentor or Enchanter Minaeve’s questionable experiments with spirit remains. Or whatever else they might be doing.”

Margo snorts. She was pretty sure that Adan and Minaeve were an item. Always vindicating when your suspicions are shared.

“Come then. It is late, and I suspect tomorrow’s departure will be an early one.”

The butterflies in her stomach make a roaring comeback worthy of a dragon. Margo tells them to kindly fuck off too.

Solas stands up. Margo closes the now empty box of pastries, rinses the cups, and returns them to the shelf. And then she follows the elf out of the apothecary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by Thomas Aquinas, whose meditation on being and essence I am playing with/butchering here. 
> 
> Next up: Fade shenanigans


	14. Strange Bedfellows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo gets her memories back

The house is still chilly and damp from lack of regular heating over the past two weeks, so Margo helps Solas get the fireplace started. The cabin is poorly insulated — strangely shoddy craftsmanship, as if built by people who were not expecting winter — and the wood in the logpile is heavy with moisture. She spends some time selecting the dryer branches for kindling. The elf is oddly quiet, but the silence isn’t altogether oppressive — just a tad tense. He starts the fire with a twitch of his digits, but the logs hiss and take time to catch. They crouch side by side, Margo feeding the little flame with the more resinous slivers she could locate — a local pine, perhaps, sweet-scented, the wood a creamy, fine-grained yellow. The pearls of resin caught in the flaky bark sizzle and crackle, and she watches them bubble and dissipate.

“Would you prefer the outside, or the wall side?”  
  
Margo looks up, startled at the unexpected question. Its utterly mundane content catches her off guard and wrestles a choked little chuckle out of her. Solas’s face, in profile, remains unreadable, but without the severity of his irascible edge. She schools her own features into a more or less convincing rendition of reserved civility. This is a little awkward, and probably not just for her.

“I personally like the wall side, but whatever you’re more comfortable with. It’s your bed, you call the shots.” She winces. That came out rather more ambiguous than intended, so Margo straightens and turns around, pretending to be fascinated with the stunningly ugly painting on one of the walls. Who is this shriveled up, comically evil looking dude? And who on earth thought of painting him? And why is there a portrait of him in every other house in Haven?

“Is that an offer?” Solas asks quietly, and the joke sounds like it’s only three quarters one.

Margo clears her throat. The warm and fuzzies rear their ugly head. She tries her best to shove them back wherever they came from. Now is not the time to play cute. “Within reasonable limits,” she offers finally, and stifles an irritated groan. What is _wrong_ with her? She isn’t even _trying_ to flirt, but apparently, there is no helping it.

“Such as?” Of course, he’d go there.

“No tickling,” Margo states firmly.

At length, procrastinating with the fireplace is no longer a tenable strategy. Margo pulls off her jacket and hangs it on the back of a chair with an intense feeling of déjà vu. Solas makes a casual little gesture that seems to mean “make yourself at home.” She climbs on the bed, and settles herself all the way against the wall. Solas, in the meantime, gathers a thin woolen blanket from a shelf and lays it over her. Margo huddles into it, but the wood at her back radiates frost, the wintry air leaking through the poorly fitted boards. Maybe there’s a rug they might hang over the wall in lieu of proper insulation.

Solas sits on the bed, his movements a tad abrupt . Eventually, his own reserves of procrastination run out, and he reclines gingerly, looking every bit as uncomfortable as one might expect considering their predicament.

Margo spreads the blanket over them both — she’s not sure about the elf, but falling asleep while trying to stop her teeth from rattling with the cold isn’t exactly in her skillset. _Just_ the cold. Nothing to see here, move along.

A few minutes of very awkward bed sharing ensue. And then Margo decides that this is just plain silly — and she really is inhumanly cold anyway — and maneuvers herself a little closer to her strange bedfellow. She turns to face the wall, her back against his side, and tucks her end of the blanket around herself. Behind her, Solas is so perfectly still she isn’t entirely sure he is breathing.

“Do you know how Haven was built, by any chance?” Margo asks in a bid to talk over the awkwardness. “Because I noticed the houses aren’t made for winter.”

It seems to snap him out of his torpor, but instead of making things easier, it just makes them worse. Solas shifts closer, apparently deciding that her query is a circuitous critique of his lodging, and thus a complaint about his hospitality. His chest presses against her back. He brings one arm around her — a loose embrace over the coarse blanket, but Margo’s heartbeat picks up anyway. His thighs brush against the back of her legs, and it is Margo’s turn to freeze.

“The same way as most things, I imagine — with the hands of those who will gain no benefit and will see little gold from the fruits of their labor.”

Despite her rather distracted state, Margo manages a snort.

“Something amuses you, lethallan?”

“For a moment, you reminded me of an influential thinker from my world. Less bearded, though.”

“Is a beard obligatory?”

Margo frowns at the wall. Wait a damn second. Is this a joke about the necessity of facial hair for engaging in philosophical thought, or is he asking her whether she prefers clean-shaven men?

When in doubt, obfuscate. “Only if you plan to start a revolution. Though there were exceptions.”

It earns her a somewhat dry chuckle. “I shall keep this in mind.”

They lie still for a few moments. This close, she notices his scent — ozone, and the faint hint of wood smoke and pine.

“Sleep, _letha’laim,_ ” Solas whispers into her hair.*

Right. Sleep. She closes her eyes, with absolutely no hope of falling asleep any time soon. And yet, before she knows it, they are both in the Fade.

It would appear that she is the one setting the décor of the dream, because they are back to the field of wild summer grasses, and she watches Solas inhale with obvious pleasure. The meadow smells of sagewort and honeysuckle, of hot earth and distant thunderstorms.

“You have a sensory way of dreaming, da’nas,” he comments.

That’s curious. She has wondered before at the strong textures of her Fade dreams — even though the setting is so often familiar, the subtle details do seem richer than in her ‘old’ dreamworld. “Should we start with the memories, then?”

He nods.

It is similar to their original ill-fated ritual, but from this side, everything is much easier. They stand side by side, as he molds the dream to reenact the lost fragments of her past.

Solas smiles as they watch her PhD advisor hand her former dark-haired avatar his book. “You have remained a scholar,” he comments, approvingly.

She blushes through her first kiss, because, of course, at this age — and seen from a third person perspective — it looks painfully awkward. She shoots her companion a quick glance, but he has a rather soft smile on his face. “A lucky boy. I wonder if he knew that,” he says, his face in profile. And then his expression becomes serious, and he takes hold of her hand.

The scenery changes.

They watch. She hadn't realized just how much their first ritual had extracted from her. 

A young marriage — holy hell, were they really that young? Barely kids themselves, about Evie’s age. They didn’t feel young at the time. She looks at Ivan, a simple, plain, handsome face that has somehow faded from her memory over the years. He is terribly earnest, ready to tackle life. A baby. Pure joy on Baba’s face as she holds the swaddled bundle. Lots of knitting of baby socks, and baby hats, and ridiculous fuzzy blankets with comical animals.

And then the doctor visits. First steps. First words. Sleepless nights. As it unfolds, the memory clicks into a place inside her she didn’t know stood vacant. A diagnosis, then another. Writing term papers by the light of a single gas lamp. Second opinions, and third ones. A congenital condition, rare, with no research behind it, and no support in their rural area — a periphery of a periphery. The specialized hospital is a far ride, on bad roads. They do it anyway, over and over and over. Finances stretch — two students’ pittances. Uncle Janos helps. Baba too, as much as she can with her pension. Ivan quits university for a simple job. " _I’d rather be working with my hands."_ It’s not enough. And, inevitable in the end, a little grave, and fresh hyacinth flowers because they were Lily’s favorites. _“Forgive me, my soul.”_ Baba, rocking Margo’s shaking, sobbing form back and forth. Baba who herself has buried all but one of her children. _“Sometimes, the roots are shallow, then even the little herbs can’t hold them down.”_ Ivan, drinking, drifting. Screaming in her face in blind, enraged helplessness. Drinking more. Hollowing out. Packing for the city, a different life with no reminders. Gone. And then, as if it is happening to someone else, a letter of acceptance into a language exchange program, a continent away. A new life, a new path. Jake joins her, too — leaving Baba behind. In a year, the dragon's got him. An expiring visa, and a last-ditch bid to extend it with a graduate school application. She stares at the acceptance letter. Phone calls that cost too much and connect only half the time. Standing in line at the consulate. Too old to travel, too old to get an entry visa. Overwrought bureaucracies. A drain on the system. Still, they try. Baba's laughter, like leaves rustling on an Autumn wind, echoing down the wires. _"My roots are here, little thistle. This is where we return. You will be back."_

She notices the tears only when they turn into sobs, vaguely shocked that Solas has carried this for her, in all its precious, wrenching details, without spilling a single drop. The memory fits perfectly. And then she is pressed against his chest, the elf’s arms around her, and he is whispering something in Elvhen into her hair, but her inherited linguistic knowledge doesn’t stretch far enough to interpret the words.

Margo rubs the tears away, and then, rather gracelessly, wipes the snot off with her sleeve, but at this point, details, right?

“Thank you. For carrying this for me.”

He nods solemnly.

They finish the other memories — most of them simpler, shorter, and bitter-sweet. By the end of it, she feels different — not exactly whole or complete, but sort of filled in, like a piece of Emmental cheese that got turned into something denser, and with fewer bubbles.

She looks at her companion, but he seems calm, a careful guide. Virgil to her Dante, once again.

“Is this tiring?” she asks.

“No. These memories wanted to go to the source. It was an easy process.”

She notices his hesitation. “You’re not so sure about the next step, though, are you?”

He looks at her then. “It…” He clears his throat. Tries again. “It is not part of normal interaction outside of the Fade, and I have never attempted it with someone who is not a typical spirit.”

Margo notices the careful way he phrased that. She frowns. It isn’t an incorrect way of mapping her — neither fully this, nor that.

“Be that as it may, this is the only way to ensure that Imshael will not confuse you in the future, should he attempt another visit. And perhaps…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, and she doesn’t press, sorely tempted though she is. Solas shakes his head and turns to her. “Let us proceed.”

Margo nods, anxiety pooling in the pit of her stomach. This better not backfire spectacularly. Fucking rituals. She hates rituals. A pox on all of them.

Solas rests his hands on the sides of her neck, fingers gentle and a little cool on her nape, and brings their foreheads together. “I believe it would be easier if you closed your eyes.”

She does.

At first, there is nothing. But then… a strange echo, though not one she hears with her ears. Like the ephemeral apprehension of, say, a plant’s flavor as the window to its pharmaceutical potency, to knowing its very nature. This is similar, though perceived through a sense Margo can’t quite identify, let alone localize. A whirlwind of impressions, fleeting, and hard to commit to memory, yet immediately recognizable once encountered anew — pride; sorrow; anger, ancient and scabbed over. An abstract, complicated, wistful kind of empathy that is almost too painful to endure. Humor. Curiosity. A quiet, contemplative resignation. And underneath it all a profound loneliness that knows no name or solution.

“Oh,” she gasps, eyes flying open. “Solas… ” But behind the swirl of qualia that make up his essence, fundamental ontological difference…

The realization crashes into her like a freight train, though what the hell does any of it mean, exactly? But there is something there, she’s sure of it, an intimate, familiar kind of mismatch. As if he’s not quite of his body either, though it fits him better than hers does.

She peers into his eyes, trying to catch the fleeting insight before it vanishes, and suddenly realizes that they are standing very very close to each other.

“Are you… You’re not…”

But before she can quite capture the idea, a kind of anxious anguish flashes across his features, and then he covers her mouth with his, and she loses her train of thought.

The kiss is soft, and sweet, and a little out of practice. At first.

After a few long moments, he pulls away, and the echoes of another private internal struggle play out on his face — one more invisible battle fought and lost. “Would you know me now, _letha’laim_?” he asks, voice a little rough, and she can’t help but wonder at the polyvalence of the question, like he is asking several complicated things at once, and not just whether she might be able to tell him apart from Imshael.

“Always,” she replies around a lump in her throat.

And then, with an impatient little sound that bears a suspicious resemblance to a growl, he pulls her against him and dips her into another kiss, and this one is deep, and greedy, and with absolutely nothing unpracticed about it.

And it also settles her curiosity about whether or not he might be Ok with tongue.

Eventually, they come apart again, but this time, it is much harder to slow down the momentum. She watches as his expression takes on a distinctly regretful cast, even though his eyes keep returning to her lips. “I… Forgive me. It was impulsive. I should not have …”

“I know exactly what you’re up to, elf,” she exhales, still trying to catch her breath.

Whatever stormy, self-tortured trajectory he was embarking upon, it is replaced by a confused frown. “Oh?”

She wags a finger at him. “One should not use kisses as a distracting tactic.”

“Hmm. Ah… Why not? Does it not work?” And now, there is definitely humor in the question. But also genuine, slightly vexed curiosity, and she has to suppress a fit of impending hilarity.

Margo shoots him a narrowed-eye look instead. “Of course it works.” He seems… well, quite pleased with himself, she supposes. “However,” she lifts a finger. “This is a temporary solution at best.”

Solas, damn him, smirks cheekily — but at least he’s forgotten about his earlier intent to backpedal in panic. After a second hesitation, he lets his arms encircle her waist, and then tugs her back against himself.

“Perhaps for the effects to take hold it requires repetition?”

She’s about to answer, when the world shudders, and careens out of view.

With a jolt, Margo opens her eyes. Only to come face to face with the aforementioned elf.

“Well? Does it?” he asks, and then, with a motion that has no right to be quite so effortless, scoops her up and rolls her over him.

Ah, it’s like that, is it? Margo lifts up on her forearms to get a better look at him. “Isn’t this way better than a giant spider?"

She feels his chuckle against her ribcage. “Perhaps.” His hands, at this point, are set on a tentatively exploratory path down her back.

“Oh, really? If there’s something you want to share about how you feel about giant spiders, now’s the time.”

A loud banging on the door shakes the hut to its foundations. It sounds distinctly impatient. Aha. So that’s what woke them up in the first place. She’s going to kill whoever it is. Although, judging by Solas’s expression, he might beat her to it.

“Come on, you two.” You two? Uh-oh. Varric. Well, Margo supposes it could have been worse. Could have been Cassandra. Now that would have been awkward.

“Prickly, if you’re in there — and if I were a betting man, I’d say you are — you really want to report to Leliana right about now. Something went tits up in the Mire. Again. They’re looking for you everywhere, the patrol has to leave right away.” The sound of creaking snow, and a soft curse that involves ‘Maker’s hairy balls,’ ‘elves,’ and some kind of comparison to ‘nugs.’ Whatever it is, it causes Solas to color and gently roll her back to the mattress with an embarrassed kind of groan. Margo concludes that “nugs” are the equivalent of “rabbits,” and that Varric has arrived to a rather Malthusian conclusion. “Chuckles, you’re scheduled with us too. Come on. We gotta get moving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Translation:  
> letha'laim = lethal (kin) + laim (lost). So, either "lost kin" or "fellow lost one" (or, likely, both)
> 
> This chapter was brought to you by Marx's beard and Varric's impeccable timing.
> 
> Next up: the Foul Mire


	15. Bog Standard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Margo discusses literature, goes to see the sights against her will, and gets a dream visit from her not particularly nice new friend.

“Andraste’s Silky Knickers, I have no idea why places like this exist. This shit’s ruining my boots,” Varric grumbles, scraping off an unidentified stinky mess from the sole of his shoe. “I don’t think we’ve seen the sun in… how many days has it been?”

“Only two, Varric. But I will grant you that this is… awful.” Cassandra is crouching next to a makeshift fire pit that just won’t catch in the constant freezing drizzle despite her best efforts.

The local deity-forsaken marsh is an unfortunate blend of peat bog and floodplain, cold, inhospitable, and utterly miserable. Margo decides to re-christen it to The Foul Mire. As far as she is concerned, the two days they’ve been trudging through it is enough for a lifetime. Possibly several.

The dwarf spends a few seconds observing Cassandra’s attempts to ignite the little pile of damp kindling with an expression of truly epic disgust, and then, with a theatrical sigh, he starts assembling a shelter for the fire pit out of some sticks and tent felt. “How’d you even end up with us, Seeker? I thought you’d be going to Redcliffe with the Herald. Where it’s nice, warm, and doesn’t rain corpses.”

Cassandra makes a discouraged noise under her breath. “Blackwall and the Iron Bull suggested that we should make the selection of assignments more equitable.”

That gets Varric chortling. “They made you draw straws, didn’t they?”

“Yes.” Delivered with the righteous indignation of the unjustly maligned.

“What about you, Chuckles, how’d you get stuck with this?” 

Margo glances up from her work. Varric is giving Solas, who is crouching under the meager shelter of a rocky overhang, a rather amused look.

Varric smirks. “Wrong place, wrong time?”

“It would appear so,” the elf responds dryly, and returns to the task of gazing abstractedly into the middle distance.

Margo stifles a sigh before rerouting her attention to the task of peeling blood lotus. Of course, they are all in a foul mood, but this is becoming a tad ridiculous. If one only considers the horrid, stinky, sticky mess of the mire, the constant rain, and the bone-deep chill that feels like it belongs in a crypt, this would already make for a thoroughly unpleasant experience. Add to all this the fact that the place is crawling with not just dead, but undead shit, and that she has to examine said undead shit after it’s been laid to rest — or, more accurately, for a short, restorative nap — to bring “samples” back to Enchanter Minaeve (may she contract an embarrassing skin disease), and you get thoroughly unpleasant on steroids. And to top it all off, the elf, nothing if not mercurial, has apparently decided to backtrack in terror-stricken panic and is …

What is he doing, exactly?

It isn’t that he is ignoring her or giving her the cold shoulder per se. Margo huddles deeper into her coat, trying to regain at least a bit of warmth. Rather, he is being studiously formal. Pleasantly formal, but formal nonetheless. As well as assiduously avoiding all eye contact. And to add insult to injury, Varric has decided — with truly enviable dedication — to drop innuendo-laden remarks, to which Solas responds with caustic irritation. So, by and large, all of this is miles away from where they had landed a week ago.

Kiss? What kiss. No such thing.

It shouldn’t chafe quite this much, and Margo scolds herself for taking it so personally — and then scolds herself for scolding herself because it is entirely unrealistic to think you can pull a Munchausen and extract yourself by your own bootstraps out of an emotional quagmire. Speaking of bogs.

She should know better. She saw it coming, really, the second it had become clear that Varric was onto them and had made erroneous, though not altogether unfounded assumptions.

Never run after an elf, or a bus. Baba’s wise suggestion should, apparently, be extended to the undead. Because a) the undead will run after you, and b) there will, in fact, be another undead if you wait for five minutes, and it’s going to bring its buddies with it.

Margo stares at the pile of reeds in front of her. More blood lotus means more fire grenades. More fire grenades means more roasted undead. Since roasted undead are preferable to undercooked undead — as those tend to run around and shoot rotten, squishy arrows at you — peeling blood lotus is a task that benefits all living beings. (Undead excluded.) Right. She’s got a job to do, which does not involve wasting emotional labor on something that may or may not be a… something. Since calling it a “relationship” at this stage would be a vast hyperbole, “something” will have to do.

At least no Avvar, as of yet. Maybe they decided they didn’t like the place either, and left.

“Harding and Bordelon have been gone for too long. I do not like this.” Cassandra has finally managed to start the fire, and their trio huddles around the flames. Even Solas abandons his rocky shelter and migrates closer to the fire pit. He sits on the opposite side — as far away from Margo as is possible while still benefiting from the meager heat.

Margo picks up a blood lotus stem and begins to pull the fibers apart, letting the filaments drop into a travel-sized cast-iron pot. Of course, blood lotus is no lotus at all — morphologically, it is similar to the _scripus_ genus, except for the rather wild assemblage of psychotropic and combustive properties. The roots, though, are starchy, and, according to Harding, edible.

“Don’t worry, Seeker. Harding will be back with dinner before you know it.”

“That actually worries me. I am not sure what would be considered edible in this Maker forsaken marsh. We should have rationed the provisions more carefully.”

As if the words summoned them, Margo hears quiet, squishy footsteps a few seconds before Harding and Jan emerge with a mid-sized animal carcass. The creature in question looks like the product of a night of passion between a pig and an armadillo.

They plop it down a few yards from the pit, and Harding digs into it with her knife with quick efficiency. Bad News makes his way to the fire and crouches by Margo. He stares at her bounty of reeds in weary disgust. “More of this blighted thing, huh. Thought we’d be done with it, but no.” He picks a peeled plant from the pot, and sniffs it. “So is it true? This stuff will make you see things? And it explodes?”

Margo takes the reed back. “The flowering parts, in high concentration, are apparently hallucinogenic.” If the little anecdote about some Orlesian chamberlain in Auntie’s book is true, and not simply an apocryphal story about the decadent stupidity of courtiers. “The stems do extract into something that’ll blow up. Nifty, hmm?”

“Wait, wait…” Varric perks up. “Is that the one where the Orlesian noblewoman tried to take a bite out of a statue? That was blood lotus?”

Margo nods. Varric’s expression slowly morphs from speculative to alarmingly devious. “You know, Prickly, it just occurred to me… I might need a consult. I’m thinking of incorporating a subplot into a story I’m writing, and I need an alchemist’s opinion.”

Oh no. This cannot possibly go anywhere good.

“You are writing a new story? Is it… a sequel to an existing story?” Cassandra looks like she’s trying very hard — and utterly failing — to broadcast polite, but neutral interest. Except, there is absolutely nothing neutral about it: it's hopeful, and maybe even a little greedy. Hmm. Margo wonders which of Varric’s books the Seeker is hooked on. Perhaps the crime series? Apparently, that one is quite popular, and Margo has been considering procuring it for herself. Maybe Varric has some copies he'd be willing to share.

“Sadly, no, Seeker. My editor’s pushing me to do another romance serial, though it’s not really my genre.”

Cassandra seems to get a little flustered at this. Margo shoots Solas a quick glance, just to see if he noticed as well. Their eyes meet briefly — apparently, he had a similar thought — but he quickly averts his gaze.

With a neutrally pleasant expression.

“I hear your other books are very popular, Varric. I am sure there would be an audience for a romance series — perhaps in Orlais.” Aha. Suspicion confirmed. The warrior princess likes her romance novels. To each their vice.

“The problem, Seeker,” and at this Varric casts Margo a sarcastic little glance “is that my editor actually likes my trashy stuff. You know, the sort of thing the Rowdy Dowager reviews. I told her it’s not my thing — my one stab at it didn’t even sell that well — but she says she wants me to try again. Void if I know why.”

This time Margo’s pretty sure Cassandra blushes. Solas suffers a sudden coughing fit. Jan grins.

What is this business with the Rowdy Dowager exactly? Wait… Does Varric write erotica?

“So. Prickly. I’m not one to say no to my editor — dangerous business, that — and I need a plot that makes up for the bad sales. So I was thinking — a torrid affair between a bookish alchemist and a mage, set against the backdrop of some cataclysmic event.”

“The mage is a secret Tevinter agent, right?” Jan chortles with a suggestive eyebrow wag at Margo.

Varric adopts a thoughtful expression that, to Margo, seems about as real as a shopping mall Santa. At this point, she has a good idea about where this train is headed. The effort it takes to avoid glancing at Solas would put Hercules to shame.

Right. She is going to kill the dwarf. Put a laxative into his stew — and some rashvine leaves into his personal necessities satchel.

“Anyway, elf stories are really popular these days. Elfie shit sells like hot cakes, I believe were my editor’s words. So I’m thinking, spunky female protagonist, and the male love interest is an elusive, brooding elven apostate — because who doesn’t like a broody elf, right? But my editor — terrifying woman, runs a whole Coterie by herself — tells me that the genre doesn’t call for much plot, as it were. So here I am, supposed to make them fall into bed in the first chapter. But I’m a writer, not a miracle worker, and I do have a reputation to uphold. So I need some kind of… device. Hence the consult, Prickly. As our resident alchemist, give me a plausible alchemical formula to speed up the process. Was going to ask Adan, but then I thought _you_ might have a better idea.”

Hell in a sack, forget the laxative — time to get herself acquainted with the poisons section.

“But wait… Varric. That would be… terrible! There would be no… anticipation! No mounting tension!” That’s Cassandra, sounding truly scandalized by the demands of the genre.

Margo, at this point, would very much like to be swallowed into the earth, though come to think of it, it’s a bit crowded, what with all the undead shits. Maybe she can trade places with one.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Harding, done with dismantling the carcass, is depositing chunks of fresh meat into a stew pot. She adds a few of the blood lotus roots for good measure. Here is to hoping they won’t all end up with some collective hallucination as a result of the scout’s questionable culinary decisions — reality is bad enough as it is. “I don’t always mind it when it skips to the chase. Varric, did you say it’s set against some kind of catastrophe? People don’t always have the time for a long courtship. Sometimes you just need to get it out of your system — might be dead tomorrow.”

“But why do they ingest the drought in the first place?” That’s Cassandra again, not satisfied with the proposed plot device, her brow furrowed in skeptical puzzlement. “Oh! Does the alchemist seduce the mage? Perhaps he rebukes her, and she slips the draught to him in secret?” The Seeker's frown deepens. “Though that would be unethical. I would not find such a protagonist appealing — if I read such things, that is. Though, perhaps, it is a love triangle? Is the mage interested in someone else?”

Bad News leans in, props his chin on his fist, and turns to Margo with a dazzling grin. “Maybe the lass has her eye on another bloke, hmm? Then slips the potion to the wrong fellow by accident. How’s that for plot thickening, Varric?”

The accursed dwarf chortles. “A comedy of errors, eh? I like how you think, Bordelon — might work well for a Tevinter market. Haven't tried to expand there yet.”

Margo succumbs to temptation, and steals a quick look at the elf. He is apparently utterly fascinated with some twig on the ground. And he is definitely looking a little flushed — and not a little thunderous. She cocks an eyebrow at the dwarf, which she hopes conveys the heartfelt _‘really?!’_ she is making every effort to not express verbally. Varric looks unrepentant. Margo sighs. The easiest solution is to probably play along. She makes a show of extracting Auntie’s compendium — the copy now well-worn and dog-eared — from her coat pocket.

“Fine, let’s see what Arancia might have on offer by way of plot devices. I don’t suppose a simple stamina potion would be enough for your purposes?”

“Oh-ho! A witty alchemist. I should add that to the story — everyone likes a plucky heroine.”

Solas has another coughing fit. Cassandra makes a noise that could, quite possibly, be a stifled giggle.

“Anyway, nah, just a stamina draught won’t do here, I’m afraid — but that gives me an idea for how to solve the, shall we say, frequency problem. I am working with a fixed word count after all.”

Margo leafs through the tome with grim resolve. Auntie really needs a better index — perhaps this is something she could take up in her spare time. If she ever has spare time between making grenades, roasting the living dead, and fielding mortifying provocations from evil dwarfs. “Let me think for a second.”

“Oh, take your time, Prickly. Solas, what about you? As the resident apostate. Does the mage yearn for another? Maybe a past love, tragic death — readers love that kind of garbage.”

Solas's tone could cut stone. “It is your story, Varric. I will certainly not pretend to know the needs of your audience, nor would I presume to interfere with your creative vision.”

Varric absolutely beams at the elf. “Ah, a stoic, yet sarcastic love interest — I can work with that. So. What might makes our mage throw caution to the wind?”

Margo looks up from her book, only to notice identically curious expressions on both Cassandra’s and Scout Harding’s faces. Varric’s got them right where he wants them.

Solas clears his throat, but manages to remain admirably composed. “Perhaps the mage has a brief lapse in judgement? An ill-considered and impulsive reaction, brought on by ... some unforeseen circumstance. But I am not much of a storyteller, Varric. I fear that my interpretation of the situation you describe would not lend itself easily to serialization. The story would end quickly, and not well.”

 _Oh, really?_ Margo tucks the compendium away — the last thing she needs is for this collective idiocy to result in water damage to Auntie’s tome. She glares at the campfire — such as it is. It certainly didn’t feel like a “lapse in judgement” at the time. Or something that would turn into a “short story.” Though considering the situation, it just might end badly — laxatives for everyone.

Varric adopts a surprised expression. “Oh-ho-ho, you’re saying the mage has some misgivings! Well, this would certainly fit with the broody theme. You know, I actually knew an elf like that once. Not a mage, though…”

“But maybe the mage cannot resist despite himself!” Cassandra interjects, apparently not in the market for a tragedy. “Then you could have mounting tension and still meet your editor’s demands. This could still make for a wonderful romance serial, Varric.”

“Truly? And what about you, Seeker? Would you read it?”

Cassandra flushes pink. “I… Ah…Well, none of us have much time to read these days.”

Fortunately for Margo, the stew is ready, and the conversation switches from “literary” matters to more pragmatic ones — what the Avvar might want, whether the epidemic might spread beyond the mire, and the logistics of mapping the terrain.

Solas manages to avoid her gaze the entire time.

***

She settles into the first sentry shift with Jan. Unpleasant, squishy, crunchy sounds keep floating from the darkness over the bog, as if something large and casually hungry is milling about, gnawing on old bones, and then sucking out the marrow.

Come to think of it, it probably is.

Margo realizes how exhausted she is because she keeps fading away, and then startling herself awake with a jerk. It’s through one of those episodic cycles that she hears Jan slowly stand up on the other side of the campfire. She glances in his direction. He is peering into the darkness, a hand on the hilt of a dagger.

“Something’s out there,” he says quietly.

The sound is faint — not much more than the irregular drip of water — but something about the quality of the darkness is different. It feels… watchful.

They are both so focused on the gloom ahead that neither notices the subtle movements on the sides of the camp. A hulking shape is caught in the glow of the fire, flickering by like a shadow, absolutely noiseless.

“Look out!” Jan bellows, in an effort to wake up the others. After that, everything happens so fast that later, in retrospect, Margo is unable to parse the sequence of events. She fumbles for a grenade, straining to see anything in the mist. Jan draws his daggers, but he is immediately assaulted by three warriors — two females, and one male — with faces painted to look like skulls. Cassandra and Harding are already standing, Varric and Solas slightly slower, but still right behind them, all in fighting stances, though no attack comes. The shadowy warriors are not, in fact, interested in a direct confrontation. Hands grab at Margo from behind, and before she can react, she is jerked backwards. On instinct, she twists, dodges another set of hands, but after the faint glow of the fire, she can’t quite make out her attackers — only intuit them in their movements. She fights blind, trying to make use of her last weeks of daily training, but it doesn’t cut it. Something shoves her in the back with ferocious force, and she crashes against another figure — a giant in bluish leathers — and then there is a sack on her head, and a sharp prick in her neck.

She has the sensation of falling into a pit while simultaneously flying up a chimney. Before Margo loses consciousness, she hears Harding call out to her and Jan, but it’s faint and garbled, as if through water.

And then, darkness.

***

Margo wakes up on a damp stone floor. The room is pitch black, safe for a faint square of night sky about twenty feet above. She tries to move. Her wrists are tied in front — so that’s a win, better than tied at the back — but then she discovers that one of her legs is wedged into something that feels like a stirrup, and secured to a wall. Her range of movement does not exceed a radius of three feet.

“Jan?”

No answer. She tries to move, but her head spins.

“ _Jan!_ ” More urgent now. She hears a faint sound to her right. She crawls over awkwardly, reaching out with her hands.

As her eyes adjust, she glimpses the outline of a supine shape. She recognizes the rogue by his armor — and the mop of black hair. The guy does have great hair, she’ll give him that.

Margo crawls closer, until whatever’s got her anchored to the wall has no more give. “Are you alright?” She tries to locate any visible injuries.

He doesn’t respond. She puts her hand on his forehead. The skin is hot and clammy to the touch. Eventually, she finds his wrist, twisting her hands at an awkward angle to locate the pulse point. His heartbeat is thready and fast. Shit. Some kind of infection? Either a wound she can’t see, a response to the toxin that knocked them out, or he ended up contracting whatever crap killed all the peasants. How long have they been here?

Margo crawls back, trying to get a better sense of the room they’re locked in. It’s narrow, judging by the way the sounds travel, with a very high ceiling. There’s nothing but damp stone, and some filthy, slimy rags in the corner. And a stinky bucket.

So, apparently the Avvar — at least, she assumes that's who captured them — wanted them as prisoners. But to what end? Are there more of the Inquisition’s people here? There were other soldiers who had disappeared — were they also victims of kidnapping? But, once again, to what purpose? Ransom? Some kind of bargain?

Culinary intentions?

Margo closes her eyes, head still swimming from whatever poison they used to incapacitate her. She’ll have to remember to ask for the formula if someone comes by. Not that she thinks there is much of a chance that anyone would tell her, of course, or that she is going to have the opportunity to deploy it in the future. Though, she’s not dead yet, so that might pass for today’s good news.

At length, she relaxes her back against the stone wall, listening to the drip of water outside the cell. They must be in some kind of castle or keep, though it is oddly quiet — no din of soldiers, no clinking of metal from a training grounds or a forge.

Eventually, she drifts off.

She opens her eyes in Haven’s bathhouse. The space is warm, and clean, and Margo sighs in immense relief — she must have nodded off for a second while resting on one of the bunks, trying to get herself warm. She’s been chilled to the bone lately, and it feels like there’s no getting the cold out.

She is wrapped in a towel, her hair still wet from recently washing it, so she settles back on the bench and pours some more water onto the hot stones, letting the steam waft up, warm against her skin.

“Hello, da’elgar.”

She flinches and looks up. Solas.

Except, of course, not actually Solas. First, because she realizes that the actually existing Solas has long since switched the terms – not “da’elgar,” or “little spirit,” but “da’nas,” or “little soul.” Besides the linguistic divergence, the presence feels different, even though the imitation is objectively almost perfect.

“I see you got the wolf to teach you a new trick. Clever girl.”

Non-Solas walks a circle around her, hands clasped behind its back, the floating, gliding stride a masterful copy. “Were you hoping for a rescue, poppet?”

Margo clenches her teeth, trying to stop the tremor. She feels naked, and vulnerable, and absolutely out of her fucking depth — first, because she is in fact, practically naked, and she has no idea what sort of defensive moves might work against a desire demon in the first place, and second because even though the thing that looks like Solas talks with his voice, and in his tone, she now can intuit the contours of the entity beneath the mask. Because it has, in fact, stopped imitating Solas’s speech patterns.

And it does sound Evil, with a capital E.

“Do you not find it amusing that it is I who always visits when you call? But of course, you must realize that your little rendez-vous in the Fade are always on your nice new friend’s terms, yes? It is not as if _you_ could summon _him_.”

It smiles at her — pleasantly — and takes a seat next to her on the bench.

Margo clenches her hands in her lap. “I was perfectly happy enjoying my bath dream before you interrupted. Now scat.” And it would have sounded wonderfully biting, if her teeth weren’t also chattering.

“Yes, I would imagine you were, little spirit. A difficult thing being locked in an Avvar cell with a dying friend, no food, and no prospects for escape or rescue. I doubt your friends are coming. You heard your wolf — what did he say? A mistaken dalliance? A brief moment of weakness? Wouldn’t it all be much easier for him if you just —” He flicks his fingers with a theatrical flourish. “Went away?”

Margo narrows her eyes. It is not, in fact, what Solas had said. The thing is twisting it around, fishing out her own reinterpretations. Amplifying her fears. Does it hurt? Naturally. But, also, good to know the mechanism. She files it away for later.

If there is a later.

Non-Solas turns, straddles the bench, inches a little closer to her, and then he reaches for her braid and begins to slowly take it apart, fingers perversely gentle — and cold as ice — against the bare skin of her shoulder. Margo forces herself not to flinch away in revulsion.

“You and I have started off on the wrong foot, don’t you think? Or, wait, that is not quite true, is it? We started off on a perfectly right foot the first time around, with that delightful little draught.” It winks at her. “But then I think we took a wrong turn.” Another lock of hair carefully separated out of the braid, and laid against her naked back. “Let me make it up to you.” It smiles, and the smile is such a perfect imitation of the actual Solas’s occasionally rueful smirk that Margo feels the coordinates of her world shift from their axis. A wave of nausea washes over her. “This one will be for free — a sign of my goodwill. Something neutral, perhaps, something that will help you talk your way out of your predicament. And who knows, maybe save your dying friend here? What is that word you use… ah, yes. Some ‘ethnographic’ information about the Avvar. How does that sound?”

“No.” It’s all she can say, really. “Scat."

The creature chuckles, sounding just delighted by all of this. “Oh, my sweet stranded little morsel, what a stubborn wee thing you are! You know, I think you are misinterpreting my intent. I do not wish to force you into anything. I am, after all, a choice spirit. The choice, as they say, is yours. But…” Another strand of hair carefully detangled. “Consider this. This dance with your… mage friend. It will take a lot from you, will it not? It’s always one step forward two steps back with him. All that… emotional labor! All that uncertainty! You give and you give… And what do you get in return?” It clucks sympathetically. “When really, what you are asking for, it is so simple! Someone to talk to as an equal. Someone to guide you through this unfamiliar world of ours. Someone to offer comfort when comfort is needed, yes? Simple, sweet things, hmm?” It strokes her now detangled hair. “A little of this, a little of that… You see, I can offer you a much more… quid pro quo arrangement.”

“What the hell do you want from me?” Margo snaps.

It smiles gently and a little wistfully, in perfect mimicry. “Perhaps I simply enjoy your company. Is that so hard to fathom? Has your emotional entanglement damaged you already that such a thing would be unimaginable? Or… is it an older ache? Something from before?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Margo decides that she’s had it with this cosmic asshole. “At least don’t insult my intelligence! And quit treating me like a love-sick puppy, it will gain you no points. I know you want something. Out with it.”

The Non-Solas thing chuckles, thoroughly entertained. “Ah, there we go, what a lovely question! Was that so hard? But I see now that I have been offering you the wrong thing. Too abstract, yes? Clever poppet, feels just like any old spirit, could have fooled me.” The thing’s eyes — which, of course, are Solas’s — go unfocused, as if he is peering through her like through a pane of glass.

“Always wants to know the answer hidden underneath the others. The kiss was real, so why the panic? Would rather know and hurt, than wonder. Knows well the taste of bitter roots.”

The thing that is not Solas looks up at her, and its expression is full of tender, utterly believable compassion. It is the most terrifying thing she has ever seen.

“Of course, ma da’elgar, you would want to know why he turned away. I can tell you that. It would cost you almost nothing. A trifle.”

Oh, no, no. No fucking way. But for a split second, the thought crosses her mind, and icy terror scuttles down her back.

“Well? Would you trade me for it? Lets say… something small, nothing too personal. Not, like, say... a memory. Something that’s not even yours to give, really. A kiss? Yes. The wolf got one. I would like one as well.”

And then, the door to the bathhouse flies open, letting in a gust of frosty air, and a giant fellow in blue armor with a truly impressive white mane ambles in, and declares, in a thickly accented baritone: “Come, Outworlder. You shouldn’t be talking to that one.”

Margo wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by some fava beans, and a nice Chianti, because Imshy likes to switch up his villain personas.


	16. Prison Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo receives an Avvar visitor, has a heart to heart with Jan, learns a new trick, and continues to have a suboptimal day.

Margo sits on the freezing floor, and waits, in dull, vague terror. Time crawls, or flies, she can’t tell. Later — could be ten minutes or an hour, or three, for all she knows — the darkness of the cell is split by a sharp shaft of light that expands into a door-shaped rectangle, and Margo squints against the glare. A large humanoid figure looms in the opening, and even though she can’t make out her visitor’s features, she is almost certain it is the Avvar from her Imshael nightmare.

At the thought of the demon, Margo shudders with a mix of loathing and mortification. It feels… dirty, somehow, like she is the one who did something stupid and now has to live with the consequences. Like a drunken, embarrassing one night stand with a creepy, and likely dangerous stranger.

What the hell does that thing want from her? Doesn’t it have other people to harass?

In the meantime, the white-maned giant enters the cell, a torch in one hand, and a bowl of something that Margo hopes is food in another. He sets the bowl in front of Margo, the crude handle of a wooden spoon sticking out of it at an angle. He wedges the torch into a wall mount, then he crouches in front of her.

Her eyes have sufficiently adjusted to the new illumination, and Margo takes the opportunity to examine her visitor more closely. The top of his face is covered with a close-fitting mask made of something that could be metal, or could be cured leather, and that only leaves his mouth and chin exposed. Above that is a thick white mane of corded hair. The skin beneath the mask is weatherworn, and he seems older — in his mature years whatever that might be for his kind. He does seem human, by and large, except for the size.

“You are far from home, Outworlder,” he comments, and the eyes staring at her from the mask are dark and sparkle with a keen intelligence.

“What do you mean?” Margo asks, mostly to buy herself some time to process the new moniker. Can he see what she is, somehow?

“Simply what I said. You are not from the mountain, not from the ice and stone and sky. A valley weed. Your spirit grew in fat grassy soils, where the gods that dwell are sweet and playful, and only rarely ask for blood. So, a lowlander. You walk in the skin of another. You are not a god first, though you traded your place with a mad one.” There is a kind of flat, staccato quality to his voice, as if he is listening to words that arise inside himself, and then repeating them out loud. “And you are far from your home and unlikely to see it again. So, an outworlder.”

Margo tries to process all this and weighs her options. She has no idea what the revelation of her status might mean to this man, or to his people. Or who his people are, exactly. Or why she and Jan are being held prisoner. That the Avvar are different — viscerally, profoundly different — from what she has so far seen of Thedas is abundantly clear.

But she does have a way of mapping whoever the white-maned giant is. As Varric would say, if she were a betting woman, she’d wager this is some kind of ritual specialist. A shaman, perhaps.

“You seem to be remarkably unsurprised by any of this,” Margo ventures. It seems more logical not to deny what he is saying outright — in no small part because she feels like he might be _channeling_ something — but she’s not about to burst out with a relieved confession about how she’s really a stranded scholar from a different realm re-embodied as an elven rogue.

“Why would I be surprised? You are here, as you are, which means that this has happened before, and it will happen again. If the gods have willed it, I am not one to argue. What is there to be surprised about?” He takes the bowl, and places it in her hands. “I am a Amund. I watch the Sky and read the Lady’s signs. Now eat.”

Margo maneuvers the bowl into her lap, and begins to shovel the thin colorless gruel into her mouth — an awkward proposition when your hands are tied. She is too hungry to notice the taste. While she eats, she thinks furiously. She is not a specialist in the history of religion, but she does have enough background knowledge to sketch an intellectual map for the Avvar’s words. Are his people animists? He called her a lowlander, so by extension his identity must be tied to “highlands” — or mountains. Which might mean they’re out of their element in the crapsack bog. Invading, then? Or have they been pushed out?

Highlands. In that context, a cult of the sky would make sense. She wonders if his people practice sky burials, as was done throughout Central Asia and the Himalayan Plateau. And he mentions gods, so a complex, polytheistic pantheon is likely. So, not the Chantry. Those, by and large, seem closer to the monotheistic end of the spectrum, as far as religious beliefs go.

“Why have you captured us?” she asks instead.

He shrugs. “I have no quarrel with you, outsider.” A derisive note creeps into her visitor’s tone. “The son of our clan’s thane wishes to augment his standing by challenging the Herald of Andraste. I wager he believes that capturing your people will draw her attention.”

Margo forces herself to stop eating, so that some of the gruel is left for Jan. Here comes the gambit. “My companion is sick. Can you help him? Or let me give him something? I can make a healing potion for him if I have the ingredients.”

Amund cocks his head to the side, considering Jan’s huddled shape on the floor. “What for? If he is dying, the gods must find this pleasing.”

Margo frowns. “He is running a fever. It means he most likely has an infection, and if I can figure out what is causing it and address it, maybe I can stop it.”

The Avvar stares at her curiously. “Tell me, Outworlder. Two men hunt in the same party. One is mauled by a bear, the other is left unscathed. Why?”

Margo tries to read the Avvar’s expression, but it is difficult to gauge behind the mask. His face remains placid, but there’s an odd gleam in his dark eyes, an intense but distracted curiosity, as if he is listening to two conversations at once, trying to split his attention between them.

“I…” She thinks. This is familiar, a common religious explanation for misfortune in her world as well. “I suppose because the man who is mauled had incurred some kind of cosmic debt,” she ventures. “Or angered a deity. Or angered his own protector, who turned away from him.”

The Avvar stays silent for a long time. “Could be. Or could be that the other one has garnered enough favor to deflect the danger from himself. Where you come from, Outworlder, do your gods speak through birds, and winds, and clouds?”

Margo mulls this over. Of course, reading portents is in most shamanic beliefs — place spirits, animal spirits, sometimes the spirits of ancestors that attach to a particular lineage and rain misery or incessant demands on their living kin all communicate in subtle ways. But, if she’s being honest with herself, her knowledge of this isn’t entirely academic or abstract, either. Baba’s world was… inhabited. An enchanted sort of banality. With trickster house spirits that misplaced your favorite teacup, and terrifying forest spirits that would steal a baby and trade it for something not altogether recognizable, and water spirits that lure you into a sink hole at the bottom of the river, or look back at you from the dark depths with a reflection not your own. Baba was a narrative poacher, a collector, weaving whatever strands of folklore she came across into the stories she told her two surviving grandkids when they were still small. She didn’t discriminate much by cultural origin — if it dwelled, if it had intent, if you could leave it some milk and bread, if you could query it for a favor, if it could trap you, or beguile you, or bend your luck, then in it went into the great stew pot of her tales.

“Sometimes,” Margo nods at length. “Though not everyone listens. And I suppose not everyone can hear.”

The Avvar remains still for a long time, seemingly lost in thought — or, perhaps, listening to some internal melody only he can distinguish.

“If... If my friend has angered the gods, then perhaps there is also a reason why he ended up being captured with me — and not alone, or with someone else. If I had the right tools, I think I could help him.”

“Perhaps if the gods will it, you might. The world is all that is the case, after all.”

Margo stares, startled. Did the Avvar just quote Ludwig Wittgenstein at her?

“I cannot help you beyond bringing you food. But you are not entirely deaf, for a lowlander. And you walk the dreams. Though I would advise you to stop calling on the wishmonger god. You do not want one such as he to take a liking.” He rumbles a grim chuckle. “Not all of our gods play fair, stranger.” Amund straightens, an eerily silent movement for a man his size. Apparently, Avvar armor is made for ambushing.

“What will your thane’s son do with us?”

Amund shrugs. “Hand of Korth? He will do whatever he thinks will usher a confrontation with your leader faster. He is a stupid and impatient brat.” He considers her. “When you die, I could rend your bones for the Lady of the Sky, if you so wish. I have never had her reject my offerings.”

Well. She supposes that answers the sky burial question.

He leaves them the torch.

***

Margo forcefeeds Jan the rest of her gruel. The rogue is lethargic, his skin clammy and hot to the touch. She tries to find a wound. “Does anything hurt,” she asks, trying to brush his hair, sticky with sweat, out of his face.

He stirs and points to his chest. Margo tries to unbuckle the rogue’s armor, her fingers slipping on the damp leather. Beneath the stained undershirt, she finds some severe bruising around his rib cage, but the skin is not broken, just discolored and mottled with hematomas. She concludes it must be internal damage. Which, of course, is worse.

Time creeps to the patter of rain outside. Eventually, another Avvar — not Amund, but a woman, her face painted in stark black and white streaks — brings them water. The warded lock shuts like a gunshot after she leaves. The liquid tastes brackish and sulfurous — and will probably give them both severe gastrointestinal distress — but Margo is so thirsty it takes an active effort not to gulp everything down all at once. She notices that they are being given only one ration, and she suspects that it is meant for her, and not the sick man.

Margo makes sure Jan gets his share.

The keep is disconcertingly quiet safe for the incessant drip of rain.

Margo forces herself to stay awake, terrified of what might be lurking in the Fade, waiting for her. What did the Avvar shaman say? Something about her calling Imshael?

To pass the time — and to avoid losing her marbles — Margo goes through the poetry she has managed to retain over the years, or made herself memorize as an exercise when her grasp of English was still shaky. T.S. Eliot’s Wastelands, she recalls almost in its entirety — a byproduct of photographic memory. Poe’s Raven too. That one’s easy. She whispers it under her breath. Once upon a midnight dreary, indeed. Chunks of the Divine Comedy float by, incomplete — a stanza here, a stanza there. She moves to song lyrics then. That keeps her occupied, humming, for a time. She gets stuck on Gloomy Sunday, her mother tongue suddenly strange in her borrowed mouth. _Ősz van és peregnek a sárgult levelek…_ She sings the first verse under her breath until she catches herself, glances at Jan, and switches to the English version. The melody won’t let her go.

 _Sunday is gloomy_  
_My hours are slumberless_  
_Dearest the shadows_ _  
I live with are numberless_

When she comes to the end of the song, Jan coughs. “Know anything that’s not so bloody dreary, lass?”

She goes through The Doors’ _Bird of Prey_. Sky burials.

“Not helping it, love. Not helping.”

She switches to nursery rhymes.

Then, when she runs out of those, she counts bricks.

Jan’s breathing pattern changes. He is coughing intermittently, weakly, but with a kind of wet, gurgling rattle to it. Margo maneuvers herself to him, and gets him partially off the floor, propping him up into a half-sitting position so that it’s easier to breathe. He leans against her, skin hot like a furnace. “Listen. If I die here, I need you to do something for me.” His voice is quiet, but when he opens his eyes, they seem tired, but aware. Unclouded.

“You’re not going to die, Bordelon. We’re going to get out of this shitpit.”

He chuckles, then it devolves into a rattling cough, which he covers as best he can. Blood bubbles form on his lips, and Margo decides it’s not an infection. It’s moving too fast. Blood in his lungs?

“Feisty one. I like you. And not just because I’d like to bed you,” he adds, and there’s a kind of rueful self-irony there that gets Margo smiling despite herself. “Though there’s that too.”

“I still have to meet a woman you wouldn’t like to bed, Jan, so I won’t take this too personally. And I’m sure there’s a whole trail of skirts yet unlifted in your future, so hold on tight, all right?”

He smiles a little crookedly, but then his expression turns serious. “Two favors. I have a kid. In Redcliffe.” He says it matter of factly, with no apology. “When I kick it, take whatever pension the Inquisition owes for my hide to his mother. Elandra. Elven lass. Redhead.”

Margo feels her heart constrict. This idiot doesn’t deserve this. None of them deserve this. All this absurd, unnecessary death, and for what? Petty fucking posturing between nearsighted bigmen, waving their phalluses around. She’d very much like to meet this Hand of Korth, whoever he is. And maybe feed him his own eyeballs as a prophylactic against future idiocy.

“If it comes to that, I promise you I will. What’s the other favor?”

Jan’s face distorts with an angry grimace. “Ser Geoffroy de Bordelon’s the name. Haven’t seen the old man in… fuck, fifteen years, give or take.” He falls silent, his breath ragged.

“Bad blood?” Margo prods him, her tone gentle.

“Yeah. That’s me. Bad blood. Didn’t like my ‘whoring, gambling’ ways, see. Not fit for a _chevalier’s_ son. I was… eh. A bit of a disappointment, you could say. Never mind that they hunt elves like rats, for sport — and that’s not all they do — but you take up with an elven lass and you pay her fair, and it’s ‘you dishonor my good name.’”

Margo processes this. She decides to shelve the empty reassurances. “What would you have me do? If it comes to that?”

Jan grins viciously. “Have the ambassador send him my regards. And let him know that his good name will continue, because his son sired an elven bastard. Just don’t say where.”

They sit like that for a while.

Margo hopes that the others made it out all right. She also hopes that Evie doesn’t decide to march down here to the rescue. This shit-bog isn’t worth it. Leliana is right. They really are disposable, in the grand scheme of things. She closes her eyes. Jan is … right, by and large. The chances of them making it out alive are relatively slim. There’s not a hell of a lot she can do about that, but she could, maybe, in theory, warn the others. At least, she might be able to let them know where the soldiers disappeared to, and what the Avvar want. That they are not acting under the command of the tribe’s thane, but of his son, and that there is at least some dissent among their ranks, if Amund’s opinion is anything to go by. That the keep is unlikely to be well-fortified, and that there will probably be no reinforcements from other Avvar groups.

But for that she would have to dream. And risk another encounter with the cosmic shitgibbon.

She closes her eyes, trying to quiet the low-grade tremor — equal parts hypothermia and terror. She huddles closer to the rogue — cynically, horribly grateful for his fever, because the heat he gives off keeps her from shaking like a leaf.

It takes a long time for her to drift off.

When Margo opens her eyes, the space is a non-Euclidean mess, like an Escher sketch rendered in shades of puke green. She walks up a staircase that keeps looping back on itself, until she simply gives up, and sits down on a step.

She’s never tried to actively call the elf before. Not just “think” towards him, or whatever abstract action of mind is required to control the Fade, but simply call him, as one would an acquaintance one spots down the street.

“Solas,” she says. She expects an echo, but instead the air — or whatever passes for it in this space — muffles the sound. Like talking into a cardboard tube.

“Da’nas. You are alive.” She turns her head, and there he is, right next to her, sitting on the step above hers. Her first reaction is to shrink away, because for a split second, she’s not sure — and she is utterly terrified that she summoned the other horror. Again. But then the feeling dissipates, replaced by a kind of conviction, at a sensorial level she has no name for, that this is, indeed, the elf.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, his hand reaching out — at first, she thinks, for her cheek. Instead, he settles his palm on her shoulder.

She looks at him then, and is vaguely, abstractly amused that the “warm fuzzies” — or whatever one might call the initial period of your standard, garden variety crush — have surreptitiously morphed into the next stage, the emotional storm of full blown infatuation. Nothing like inexplicable rejection to feed the fire, apparently. How very predictable.

Oh well, this too shall pass — and relatively soon, if the Avvar have any say in the matter. Margo smiles, probably a little sadly, because, really, it is too bad they likely won't get to know each other better. Whatever the other stuff between them might be — and yes, it’s the big pink unresolved elephant in the room (though the thought of a resolved elephant is somewhat alarming in and of itself) — Solas proved an interesting interlocutor. And, in the end, she’d trade just about anything for a glass of wine in front of the fire, and a long evening conversation. Maybe about the nature of spirits. Or magic. Religion. Theodosian history. Or hell, even Elvhen linguistics, she wouldn’t mind learning more about that. Is it agglutinative? Does it have vowel harmony? What’s the syntax? Or what he thinks of the Avvar. Or Qunari. Or Tevinter. Or anything else about this strange, terrible, dazzling world.

Ah, fuck. It’s the ones you want to talk to that you need to watch out for, as Baba liked to joke.

“Margo, please... Tell me where you are. Tell me how to help you.” And there is such urgency in his voice, that, for a second, she just wants to fall into his arms, close her eyes, and breathe in deeply the scent of ozone and smoke and pine needles.

Of course, she doesn’t. Even if she could, there is no time.

“I don’t know how long I’ll keep up the dream. We are in a keep, or castle. Jan is here as well. He’s dying.” Her voice barely hitches. “There are other Inquisition soldiers here somewhere, but not in the same place where we are kept.”

There is a wobble to the dreamworld, and Margo rushes through the words, before the dream disintegrates. “Listen, this is all at the behest of some Avvar lord’s son. I believe he wants to challenge Evie to increase his own status — so we are either a lure, or hostages. Not all of the Avvar are on his side, and I don’t think the keep is theirs — I think they’re squatting. It sounds very uninhabited.”

The dream wobbles again.

Solas reaches for her, both hands on her shoulders now, and the dreamscape stabilizes. “Can you tell me anything else about the location?”

“I’m sorry. They had us drugged with something.” Margo quirks her lips in a smile, trying to dispel the strange, bone-gnawing sorrow. “Do me a favor and ask them for the recipe if you get the chance? I bet Adan would just love to add it to his collection.”

“Ma da’nas…”

“Solas, listen, if I don’t see you again, I wanted to say… thank you. For helping me. It was kind of you. And…” She doesn’t quite know what she wants to tell him, and none of it would fit in the allocated time anyway. Language, she suddenly realizes, is a very linear thing.

He’s about to say something, but Margo motions for him to wait. Instead, she tries to replicate what he did when he was returning her memories. She would never even consider trying anything like this under normal circumstances — but what does she have to lose at this point, right? If it doesn’t work — and she’s pretty certain it won’t — and ends up being embarrassing, at least it won’t be embarrassing for too much longer.

What did Amund say? When you die, I can rend your bones for you.

A final kindness.

It’s awkward, weird work, that strains something in her mind that she didn’t know was there in the first place. At length, she manages to produce a fragile little dream bubble, except instead of being encapsulated it is sort of _excapsulated_ , for lack of a better term. It’s not well-executed — messy, schematic, and missing crucial bits, like a toddler’s drawing. But it does contain the thought-impression of her wish. Or perhaps not so much a thought, as a kind of memory. A hypothetical. One that didn’t happen, but could have been.

The world is all that is the case.

Fireplace. Wine. A long conversation that doesn’t exactly have a set goal, but rather coils and uncoils, meandering, like a stroll down a misty alley in some old, overgrown, half-forgotten park.

It’s maybe the size of a baseball, no more than that. She pushes it toward Solas, and he catches it in one hand. Except that’s not quite right either — Margo is not sure what he does with it, but this is how her mind glosses over an act for which she lacks the proper interpretative apparatus.

His eyes widen. The elf stares at her, an expression she really can’t decipher on his features. There’s surprise there, but that’s the tip of the iceberg, and below it something complicated and a little pained, like a habit suddenly having to rearrange itself, working against a familiar pattern ossified by repeated use.

The world wobbles, comes off kilter.

“I’m out of time,” Margo says. The dream slips.

“Letha’laim, wait…"

She opens her eyes.

She can’t quite tell how much time passes. Less than a day-cycle, but it’s hard to tell with the perpetual murky rain that drenches the miserable bog.

The next time they’re brought food and water, there is a lockpick hidden inside Margo's bowl of gruel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The standard interpretation of the statement 'the world is all that is the case' has to do with the relationship between logic, language, and the possibilities of description. It made sense to me that Amund might use a statement along those lines to express the simple, practical facticity of his gods, and how their will manifests in the world. When Margo references the same sentence later, she does it with a different meaning: she's getting a sense of the non-dualism of the Fade, which allows for competing possibilities to co-exist at once -- if a given proposition is plausible, from the perspective of formal logic, then it can be brought into existence (hence there is no "absolute" truth in the Fade, as we get from the in-game conversations about what happened in Ostagar). Also, brought to you by sky burials, which are nothing to scoff at.
> 
> Next up: Escapes, battles, and unpleasant realizations.


	17. Bad Odds (^)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo and Jan escape, and the team tries to survive the Avvar and Evie's ambient bad luck.
> 
> Content warning: minor character death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit on the violent side.

Margo stares at the lock in mute frustration. The only thing she’s ever managed to successfully lockpick in her entire life is a luggage lock. And those things are designed to spring open if you so much as sneeze at them insistently enough.

This is a different matter. A large, heavy locking mechanism — simple and crude, yes, but meant to open only when enough force is applied to turn the key. The word that comes to mind is warded lock.

Jan would know what to do. But he is in no state to help.

She still tries, maneuvering herself closer to the rogue, and using the opportunity to get more of the questionable water into him. Eventually, she is able to make him drink, and his eyes flutter open. He groans, his breath coming shallow and hitched.

“Jan, walk me through how to pick a lock.”

It takes him a while to respond, and when he does, his voice is barely a rasp. “Maker’s hairy backside, lass… You forgot that too?”

Margo holds the lock pick in front of his eyes to give him a sense of the kind of tool they have to work with.

“Skeleton key,” he says. “Stick it in, move it around until you can turn it.”

Not very helpful, but she supposes she can cut him some slack, on account of the whole dying thing. Margo pushes the hysterics as far down as they’ll go — which isn’t very far — and sticks the skeleton key into the keyhole. And, after what feels like an eternity, it catches. Cautiously, she tries to turn the pick clockwise. She almost has it… and then it jams, and won’t budge.

Shit.

She pushes it in a fraction of an inch, her palms sweaty and her fingers slippery. Tries to turn it. Nothing. Pulls it out a bit, keeping whatever half-turn she has managed to wrangle out of it. And then, with a loud popping sound, the lock clicks open.

Margo extracts her foot from the cuff, wincing at what is probably a nasty, infected sore — but she has neither the time nor the inclination to examine it too closely at this point. She limps to the door. It’s a similar kind of mechanism — another crude warded lock. This one takes her about twenty minutes of squatting and muttering unflattering things about Avvar matrilines to disengage. She is sweating despite the damp cold, terror prickling between her shoulder blades. Then, finally, the lock submits to her unskilled ministrations with a satisfying  _ clank _ . She eases the door open and sneaks a look up and down the hallway.

Empty.

After a brief moment of hesitation, Margo leaves the cell and closes the door behind her. First things first, she needs to find something to stabilize Jan — without that, there is no way she can move him, and she’s not leaving without him. She tries to recall which directions the footsteps usually came from. The odds that their stuff is kept somewhere close to their cell are slim to none. Most likely, they’ve already been distributed among their captors, but if she can find wherever they make their gruel, there is a chance she might come across elfroot. Or, if she’s really lucky, maybe even Some Fungus — and then she can make something out of that.

She stops in the middle of the hallway. The smell is faint but unmistakable — the sweet, coppery tang of blood lotus reeds — like blood and violets. Her nose leads her to a small crammed windowless room. Furniture is pushed together haphazardly, broken and rotting from disuse or maltreatment. She spots a pile of stuff in the corner, and she eyes it dubiously. Has her luck really turned? It’s all manner of equipment — belts, a few knapsacks, some items of clothing. Boots. She recognizes an Inquisition hood by the heinous lime green. 

When in doubt, rummage. Margo stifles an unhinged cackle when she spots her grenade belt, at the side of the pile. It’s probably the origin of the smell — she never did have the chance to clean it properly before they got kidnapped, and Adan had mentioned to her once that the blood lotus oxidizes with a strong odor. It’s probably going to be a bitch to get the smell out now, but Margo has never been so grateful in her life for this particular lapse in proper hygienic practices.

A vague thought about why the Avvar are piling everything in one place fleets across her mind, but she dismisses it as currently irrelevant. Maybe they don’t find value in these particular objects, or maybe they have some kind of elaborate redistribution system. One of her dagger sheaths is there — the one that’s more visibly damaged — but the weapons are missing. However, the grenade belt is practically intact — one health and two lyrium potions are broken, but all the grenades are still safely tucked away into their padded cells. And she has two more elfroot draughts and one magica tonic to work with. She also finds a dirk — an old weapon with a slightly loose hilt, which confirms the refuse status of the heap. Margo sets the salvage aside, and she uses the dirk to saw through her wrist bindings, muttering the whole way. Beneath a torn, very smelly gambeson she finds something that looks like a paring knife — though the correct term is probably "shiv." She grabs both of those.

Margo runs back with her loot, heart hammering in her throat because how much longer can her luck hold before it runs out? This would be the perfect moment for some unaccommodating and aggressively minded Avvar to show up and check on the prisoners. Though no one has really bothered with them much, not counting Amund. Which probably just means that this is precisely the time their captors suddenly choose to rectify this oversight.

The hallway remains deserted.

She steps inside the cell. Jan is curled up on the floor, and Margo decides she doesn’t like the fetal position he has adopted one bit. It reminds her of a dead fly, its legs curled up against its abdomen. She kneels by the rogue, lifts his head, unstoppers one of the elfroot vials with her teeth, and pours the contents down his throat. He coughs, but she manages to make most of it go down.

The draught works with its usual uncanny speed. What is it about the local plants that causes the body to metabolize the active ingredients so well? Or, conversely, what is it about local bodies?

Jan opens his eyes — normally, a rich, piercing blue, but, in the gloom, a dark gray. He gives her a faint smile. “Better. Not good. But better. Can you get me out of the manacles?”

It takes some fiddling with the skeleton key, but it goes faster than the first time around. Margo helps him stand up, and Jan leans on her heavily as they make their way out of the door — the scent of elfroot mixing with the smell of blood, sweat, and whatever tannin was used to cure his leathers. At least, he doesn’t smell quite so sick anymore, so there’s that.

Once they are in the hallway, Margo stalls. This is as far as her brilliant escape plan went — from there, she’s not sure what to do. Left or right?

“That way.” Jan points his chin to the left, probably relying on whatever tacit knowledge he has of military forts. 

At the end of the hallway, they find a set of stairs.  They hobble down one flight, and then Jan’s hand closes around her wrist in a warning gesture. Some kind of commotion has started outside. Sounds drift from below — the rhythmic pounding of boots hitting the cobblestones, the swishing of metal drawn from leather sheaths. The staircase has led them to a platform next to a narrow embrasure, from which Margo has a restricted, but serviceable view of the courtyard.

She peeks out.

The keep’s central hall is drenched in rain. There might have been a point when the fort was truly majestic — a century ago or two ago. From their elevated vantage point, Margo can see right down to what was once the floor of the main hall, where the stones retain the faint traces of decorative patterns. Back when the fort wasn’t in shambles, there would have been a roof in the way.

At one end of the hall, she spots a group of Avvar warriors — same bluish leather, same black and white streaks of war paint criss-crossing their faces. She tries to locate Amund, but he is nowhere in sight. In the center of the hall, a large muscular fellow adorned with a horned helmet that looks like it would get routinely stuck in narrow doorways makes a mock welcoming gesture with an axe the size of a stealth bomber.

Other prisoners — all of them in Inquisition uniforms — are led forward by a retinue of archers. Margo counts six other captives. A few are limping, and one is being carried by his comrades. They are arranged into a kind of semi-circle by their escort.

“Lowland scum!” The voice is low-pitched, arrogant, and carries well. The horned bastard — Margo decides to re-brand him Hand on Krotch — swings his giant axe onto his shoulders like it’s a plastic pool noodle. “You are about to witness your puny leader defeated by the mighty Hand of Korth! And then you shall die, and your blood will please the gods and bring good fortune to the true Avvar!”

Margo shakes her head. Oh for fuck’s sake, really? This is what they get? All of this death and misery because of this bombastic idiotic with a penchant for referring to himself in the third person? She looks down at the Avvar warriors. Based on their body language, a few of them are very clearly itching for a fight — they are swinging their weapons around and bouncing from foot to foot. But not all. A good number of them just look bored.

The contingent of archers leads the prisoners away, and the rest of the Avvar look like they’re getting ready for something. Eventually, the archers come back, taking positions. The warriors call to each other in a harsh, guttural vernacular Margo can’t understand — though it sounds vaguely germanic. Whatever it is, she is pretty sure that it is meant to be some version of pre-fight trash talk.

Ah shit… Does this mean that Evie and crew were actually convinced to challenge this troglodyte?

Margo leans into the embrasure, hoping to get a better view of the totality of the Avvar forces. There’s maybe fifteen of them that she can see. A stab of anxiety hits her in the solar plexus. Shit. If what she suspects about the luck-bending properties of Evie’s mark is true — and she’s pretty sure something about her theory is correct — then there is absolutely no way that four or even five of them can take out this group of warriors, who are fighting on their own turf, and without any known handicap safe for the fact that their leader is a lugubrious cretin.

And then she spots movement around the entrance to the hall, where a long, wide set of stairs leads down into what must be the lower levels of the keep. She peers into the murk, trying to discern who — or what — is moving.

“Herald of Andraste!” the horned axe-wielding asshat bellows. “Face me! I am the hand of Korth and I shall bring your doom!”

Jan groans. “Well. There’s a bloody pillock.” He sits up to look through the opening in the stone. “How many of ours?”

Margo tries to get a better view, but the embrasure is too narrow. After several interminable moments, familiar figures begin to materialize out of the fog.

Cassandra is taking the lead. The warrior princess walks in with a confident swagger, a hand on the pommel of her sword. Margo thinks she’s strolling in like she owns the place as a deliberate provocation — to draw attention to herself and away from Evie. No one expects the Inquisition, and there’s no way anyone expects Evie to be the Herald of Andraste. The bearlike shape stalking parallel to the Seeker must be Blackwall, and Margo breathes out in relief at the sight of him. Yup, physics-defying bear is a sight for sore eyes — alongside Cassandra, they make a formidable pair. Behind them, she spots three more figures. Varric, center, Bianca in front of him like an AK-47. The Orlesian mage — the Iron Lady, as Varric would have it — to the left. And Solas, on the other side.

Evie is walking about twenty paces behind them all. At least the kid’s armor is now looking a lot more practical. Margo watches her move, and winces. Still that weirdness — the slight wrongness, or the sense of being  _ out of place _ is there, a kind of stilted quality to every step and gesture. But she is far enough away that whatever strange effects her mark might produce, it might not affect the others’ fortunes too severely. Well. Maybe this can be won.

“Six of them in total,” Margo tells the rogue.

“Fifteen to six. That’s not good odds,” Jan trails, and then he is gripped by a coughing fit interspersed with rather colorful expletives. “Do you have another draught?”

Margo shoots him a quick look. “Last one. Is it getting worse?”

He doesn’t respond right away. “No. But, as I said, this is not good odds. Can’t very well fight in this state.”

Margo frowns. “Jan, I didn’t drag you all the way out here to get you killed. Maybe sit this one out, yeah?”

“Stop fussing, lass. I’ll be fine. Just…”

They don’t have time to finish the argument. The great horned buffoon emits another aggressive bellow, and the room explodes in battle. Margo finds herself running down the staircase towards the great hall, the sounds of metal hitting metal ringing in her ears. The air crackles, an updraft hitting her nose with the smell of ozone and ancient mountain glaciers. The ozone must be Solas’s magic. The glacial breeze, she guesses, is Vivienne’s.

Before she can burst out into the courtyard, her brain finally switches on, and she forces her body to slow down. She is armed with a shiv — Jan got the dirk — and a few grenades. What the hell is she thinking? The adrenaline has carried her this far, but she’d be an idiot to think that she is battle-ready after however many days in a dank, frozen cell with minimal food and water, and little sleep. It’s one thing to train in the rink with people who are not actively trying to kill her. It’s an altogether different thing to try to survive an actual slaughter.

She turns around. Jan, close on her heels, makes a sour face. Judging by his expression, the rogue just came to a very similar conclusion about their chances.

They enter the great hall quietly, hidden from view by one of the crumbling columns.

Margo surveys the battlefield — and her stomach tightens into a terrified little ball. The pattern is more subtle this time, not as glaring as it was in the ancient fortress in the Hinterlands, with the demon ring and the hell-yolk rift. This… this you could miss if you didn’t know where to look.

An archer releases the bowstring with a whistling thwack, and the arrow flies towards Evie, but it misses by a wide margin, even though the shot was well aimed. Blackwall, forced back on a close orbit to Evie by two large Avvar warriors, parries an attack from one heavily armored opponent — step, parry, strike, an underhanded pommel blow from below in lieu of an uppercut. He deflects a mace with his shield, but then his sword lands oddly, the strike reverbing into his arm and leaving him open for a split second. His opponent exploits this, sending the gravity-defying bear flying with a kick to the stomach.

Another arrow — too fast to see, of course, but aimed at Evie once again, goes wild. Cassandra taunts the giant horned buffoon, but then she loses her footing on the wet cobblestone and has to compensate with an awkward side-step. Hand on Krotch kicks out his foot and trips her, and the Seeker rolls out of the way, narrowly avoiding being split in half by the oversized axe.

Evie, still in the back of the group, but closer now — too close — strikes out against one of the archers charging at her with a dagger. It’s an awkward, unpracticed movement with a sword too heavy for her. It doesn’t connect, and the momentum carries her around, exposing her back to her attacker. Margo’s heart freezes, anticipating the fatal blow. A few paces away Vivienne’s spell fails with a spectacular explosion of ice crystals, and the mage is blown back by the shock wave, crumpling into a pile of fancy Orlesian couture on the keep’s floor. The dagger-wielding rogue takes a few wobbly steps, then he drops to the floor, face up. A stray ice shard is embedded into his eye socket.

Margo gives Jan a quick look.

“Still bad odds,” he says.

Did he see the same thing as she did in the old fort? He fought with them, but on the outside. But… no. This is subtle. The only reason she’s noticing the connections is because she is actively looking for them. Otherwise, it just looks like their side is having a streak of shit luck.

“Jan, listen. We can help them, but you need to do exactly what I say, and don’t ask why, all right?” He looks like he’s about to argue, so she just rushes right over him. “Stay on the periphery, and take out as many archers as you can.”

He gives her a smug grin. “Any other brilliant strategic advice, Commander?”

“Yes. No matter what, don’t come close to the Herald.”

He frowns at that, but there must be something about her expression that somehow convinces him. He nods.

“I’ll need that last potion.”

Margo hands it to him with a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She’s making a mistake, somehow, but she is unable to articulate why.

And then, they both spring to their feet, and Margo is running along the perimeter of the skirmish, gripping the first grenade and trying to stop her hands from shaking.

***

At first, she gets lucky. She takes two of the archers out with the explosives, keeping well outside whatever radius is likely affected by Evie’s mark. Jan is sneaking up on a third archer, on the other side of the hall, and Margo leaves him to his task. After the second grenade blows up, she gets noticed — both by her side, and by the Avvar. She hears Varric yell out “Prickly” somewhere behind her, but she’s too busy running away from a large Avvar dude who is brandishing what she’s pretty sure is a bone club made of the femur of some large, ill-tempered, and likely carnivorous creature.

When the warrior is almost upon her, Margo pivots around and freezes for a split second. Her attacker grins, exposing a row of yellow teeth. There is no time to think. In a movement the Iron Bull had her practice in the icy slush for what felt like three centuries straight, she drops to her knee and strikes at the side of the Avvar's kneecap with an open fist, taking advantage of his size difference. His leg buckles, and, before he can regroup and crush her with his club, Margo slashes with her shiv across the tendons at the back of his left knee, wedging the blade into the crease of his armor. The Avvar collapses with a roar, swinging his club wildly. She springs to her feet and leaves him to it — he’s not going to hop away, and someone else can finish him off. She still can’t bring herself to kill a man with her own hands.

She steals a quick glance at the others. Somehow, they’ve been driven into a tighter radius, with Evie at the epicenter — which isn’t good at all. The mages swing their staves asynchronically, each with a distinct style of spell casting. Vivienne is more theatrical, as if she is performing on stage, each gesture accompanied by a brief, aesthetically pleasing flourish. Solas’s movements are effortless, graceful, and laconic. She catches a brief glimpse of his face in profile — he is pale as a sheet, features gaunt from magica drain, his cheeks hollowed out.

In her estimation, about two thirds of the spells are failing, and every fourth spell or so backfires.

She catches Varric’s eyes, rimmed dark and puffy with exhaustion. His expression is drawn. He taps Bianca with his thumb, then he shakes his head once. Margo translates the nonverbal message as “this shit ain’t working.”

There is absolutely no way they are going to win this. 

She looks for Jan, frantically. A flicker of movement behind another archer catches her attention in the far corner of the room. A flash of silver, and the archer’s throat explodes with a stream of crimson. Margo breathes out. At least something is going right. Between her grenades and Jan’s assassination spree, they’ve somehow managed to take care of the long-range threat.

But that still leaves a group of about eight Avvar — minus the one she decommissioned earlier, now dead, likely courtesy of Jan — and another dead body she attributes to Blackwall’s efforts. The Avvar are slowly surrounding Evie and the crew, and even if Solas, and perhaps Varric know they should break formation and disperse, this would go against both instinct and the battle’s momentum. There’s simply nowhere to go without exposing Evie.

And at this point, Margo has seen enough that the Amund’s words suddenly click into place, and the strange probability bending pattern makes a sick kind of sense. The shaman is right. It’s not just that one deflects ill-luck from oneself. It’s that there is a conservation principle at play. You cannot create  _ ex nihilo. _ The magic in Evie’s mark must be leeching luck from her allies — or outsourcing ill-luck to them. Margo gnaws at the inside of her cheek, trying to work her way through the model. This would also mean that when Evie herself gets lucky — and hits her target — fortune is siphoned off from someone else in the party.

Whatever this hexing magic is, it is a kind of vampire.

The colossal absurdity of the whole thing suddenly washes over her with a wave of barely repressed hysterical cackling. And wrath. Pure, unadulterated, fucking wrath at the pointlessness of it. That the horned shitgibbon and his buddies might actually kill her friends — and this world’s best chance at saving itself — and for what? For what asinine purpose? The only reason he’d manage this is that this entire group of accomplished, focused warriors (well, minus Evie) are working with a handicap they can barely see, let alone counteract. Margo somehow manages to stop herself from howling in helpless rage. Just give her enough blood lotus extract to blow this shithole to smithereens, and she’ll do it in a heartbeat. Fuck this.

The only chance they have is if they spread out and get as far away from Evie as possible. Damnit, Varric and Solas must know this, at least on some level, but they’re hemmed in.

Margo’s foot hits something hard. She looks down. Stones. Lots and lots of loose stones, and fragments of stones, littering the periphery of the hall — likely remnants of the collapsed ceiling.

Well, she’s not “without sin,” as they say, but someone’s gotta do the casting, so there we go.

She picks up a baseball-sized stone fragment, weighs it in her palm, and then she adopts a wide stance. Hand on Krotch has his back turned, but he makes a decent target with his size and idiotic helmet. Margo sends a prayer to whatever higher being might be on listening duty, and she launches her projectile.

The stone flies in a neat little arc and thwacks the bonehead smack between the horns before bouncing off. Hand on Krotch shakes it off — a motion remarkably similar to a dog flinging water from its fur — and then he turns around.

Well. It’s not like she can fight the bastards. But she can give them the runaround — Hand on Krotch doesn’t strike her as the brightest tulip in the flowerbed. “Over here, you dickless shitgibbon!” Margo yells. Her body’s slightly raspy alto makes the taunt sound passably threatening, rather than just juvenile. And it carries well, so that all heads — enemies and allies alike — turn to her. Great. She’s got everyone attention now, might as well make the best of it. “Is that a coat rack on your head, or did your mamma like to spread ‘em for a goat?”

Because, when in doubt, there are always off-color your mamma jokes.

Varric, bless him, gets what she’s trying to do right away. He motions with his free hand — a thumbs up followed by a circular gesture, which Margo interprets as “keep going.” While the Avvar warriors are busy waiting for the “head” of the operation’s delayed reaction, Solas and Varric fan out, and Vivienne, dragging Evie by the forearm, makes her way towards the shelter of a large pile of architectural rubble. Blackwall and Cassandra widen their stances, shields raised and weapons at the ready.

At this point, Margo is on a roll. After going down a detailed zoological survey of the idiot Avvar’s mother’s bedroom preferences, she mixes it up with a couple of digs at his own likely underwhelming capacity under the sheets, and then, for good measure, she throws in something vaguely blasphemous about Korth. All the while launching projectiles, which connect with their targets less than she’d like, but most definitely annoy.

The latest Korth insult — something scatological about the god not knowing this idiot from a frozen yak turd (whether Thedas has yaks or not, something about yak turds strikes Margo as universally amusing) — gets the big Avvar to bellow that he is going to tear her limb from limb after fucking her bloody (though it might be in the other order, she’s not sure).

“Whatcha waiting for, bonehead?” Another stone. “Or do you need to hold hands first? Come and get me!”

Hand on Krotch charges, but by this point her allies are in position, and Evie’s out of the way. Margo takes off at a sprint, down from her own pile of rubble and to the right, trying to outflank the roaring and stomping horde that’s coming at her with Krotch at the lead.

She swerves out of the reach of a particularly swift Avvar before making a beeline straight for Cassandra and Blackwall, who are charging at the horde with taunts of their own. She has a brief glimpse of Cassandra’s expression, focused and clear, eyes sharp as a hawk’s. Blackwall is cold, almost detached, and yet utterly murderous — in a kind of transcendent battle rage.

She passes between them at a dead run, hoping that the two can stall Hand on Krotch and give the rest of the team a chance to pick off the supporting cast of rampaging barbarians at long range. There’s another pile of debris, about half-way between where she is and Solas’s position. Their eyes meet, and for a brief moment, in the eerie glow of another spell, he looks entirely otherworldly to her, like some ancient demiurge, too outside of the bounds of habitual thought to comprehend beyond the stark, breathtaking, terrifying beauty of his sheer otherness. And then she blinks and the illusion breaks, and it is just Solas again, bloodied, dirty, features drawn with fatigue and magica depletion. He mouths something at her, but she can’t hear the words over the din of battle, so he nods towards the pile of rubble with a quick gesture that Margo decides means something like “I’ll cover you.”

She scrambles to the pile of debris and fishes out a lyrium potion. She holds it aloft for the elf to see, then she tosses it. Solas catches the vial easily with his left hand, and then uncorks it and downs the contents right away. A moment later a blue glow bursts around her, and the air prickles briefly, the iodine scent like the distant memory of the ocean — there, then gone. Margo picks up another stone, just in time to notice two Avvar slowing down, at the outer range of Solas’s spells. She hurls her rock, aiming at the warrior on the right while he’s jumping away from a lightning bolt that scorches the ground half-a-step from him. The rock hits him in the jaw with a satisfying crunch, swirling him around. And then Jan steps out of another shadow — nifty trick, that — and drives his dirk up, under the Avvar’s chin. The warrior falls, his body twitching spasmodically even after Jan retrieves his weapon, and Margo swallows back a wave of nausea.

The other Avvar fails to step out of the lightning bolt’s way, which, really, she can’t fault him for. How the hell are you supposed to dodge lightning?

“The Herald!”

Margo whips around, just in time to see Varric gesture in the direction of where Evie and Vivienne are holed up. Hand on Krotch is otherwise occupied with Cassandra and Blackwall — which is precisely what Margo had hoped would happen — but the remaining Avvar have stopped following their brilliant leader. Instead, they have clearly figured out who the weakest link might be, and they are going for it.

The dwarf changes something in Bianca’s configuration and releases a volley of bolts into the group of goons, screaming through the crossbow’s visibly brutal recoil.

Solas takes off at a run in the direction of Vivienne and Evie, and after a second of hesitation Margo follows him, Jan on her heels — behind, and a little to the right. Shit. It’s possible that if they stay just at the perimeter of Evie’s hexing force field, they might still fight effectively. Varric is far enough that it doesn’t seem to be affecting him.

Margo gets a glimpse of Vivienne. Her face is twisted in strained annoyance: almost every single spell — except for the blue barrier one, and some other weird, fussy looking thing that draws icy hieroglyphs on the ground some ten feet ahead of her — seems to fizzle and fail.

Solas, now at the outskirt of Evie’s jinxing bubble, hesitates for a brief moment — and then he resumes his forward momentum. Margo’s eyes widen. What the hell is the elf doing? “Solas!” she screams. Perhaps he thinks it’s narrower than it is.

He turns around, barely breaking his stride. “Have to… spread it around. Stay out!” he barks back.

Ah, fuck. Because, of course, he must have figured it out too — that Evie’s vortex of ill-luck is a zero sum game, and that the more bodies there are to siphon from, the better the individual odds are. Margo wonders briefly what would happen if no one was around at all — would Evie survive an attack? Would fortune, in fact bend ex nihilo? But of course, she can’t make that bet. And she’s pretty sure Solas came to the same conclusion.

She should stop Jan from coming into the perimeter. A quick glance back at the rogue, and she can see that the elfroot potion is waning, that the damage is beginning to catch up to him again. If luck is a finite quantity, his is running out fast. She needs to keep him out. And then, she looks at Evie’s terrified, focused, tear-streaked face. At Varric’s clenched jaw as his hands work another bolt into the crossbow. At Vivienne, who suddenly looks ten years older. And at the elf.

When Margo makes the decision, it feels like something inside her, in some place she’s never paid much attention to stretches, and then snaps. She doesn’t stop the rogue. Instead, she lets her legs carry her forward, and into the space of the hex.

The next five minutes of Margo’s life are a blur. Later, she remembers some of it — brief, decontextualized details, like flashes frozen by a strobe light. She remembers the way blood explodes from a puncture wound in Varric’s shoulder, and it looks much redder than you’d think. She remembers the singed hair smell of Vivienne’s failed spells, three in a row, as the woman screams through the agony of whatever happens when magica runs out, and the mage pushes her body beyond the limits of it abilities. She remembers Solas’s eyes — something almost mineral about their color in a face paler than paper — when the elf drives the bottom of his staff into the back of the man about to lobe off Margo’s head. Nothing magical about that. She remembers what the tip of a sword looks like when it comes out on the wrong side of Jan’s torso, about two inches to the left of the spine. She remembers the gristly pop and easy give of driving her shiv into the neck of the Avvar lifting Evie off the ground by the throat. She remembers the searing pain of a blade slashing across her thigh.

And she remembers Evie’s tear-streaked face and blood-covered armor, not a single drop of it her own.

When it’s all over, she finds herself in a heap on the floor, Blackwall, of all people, tying a tourniquet around her upper thigh with a leather belt. Probably his own.

“Mage!” he calls out, his voice harsh and urgent, and then, on the other side, Solas materializes, his palms, smeared with blood, pressed against the wound. He drives his magic into her body with too much force and Blackwall recoils from the static discharge. “Easy there, fella,” he soothes, like one might a cornered animal.

Margo turns her head to Solas. “Help Jan. It might not be too late. He still must have some of the tonic in his system…”

She sees it then, in the subtle shift in his facial expression, a softening around his eyes. He shakes his head once. “I’m sorry, da’nas. He’s gone.”

The howl never makes it past her lips. Instead, it drives itself inward, settling into her bones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by the zero-sum game, and the fact that in this story, luck is a finite resources.
> 
> Next up: Aftermath, burials, and a tense conversation that has a slightly unexpected result.


	18. Memento Mori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo tries to find some privacy, and instead finds an irritable elf (and a little extra)

There is some debate about whether or not to rehabilitate the old keep. In the end, the powers that be decide that the undead make too much of a deterrent. Harding and a group of scouts join them belatedly, with a terse report about mage hostiles — apparently neutralized — to the south-east. The news that they are set to head back to Haven at the end of the next day is met with quiet cheers.

Margo spots Amund among the faces at the makeshift camp they set up in the keep’s upper courtyard — after cleaning the grounds of dead Avvar. She is not surprised to see him. When he notices her, the shaman inclines his head and makes his way over. He smells distinctly of death and raw meat, and Margo concludes he must have been carrying out the funeral rights for his people.

“Your dead scream too loud inside you, Outworlder,” he comments, dark eyes fixed on the skies, where the Breach cannot be seen. “You must not hold the dead too close. You let one in, then all the others come along. Do you wish me to help you with the offerings?”

Margo, who can feel the scream vibrating under her skin with nowhere to go, opens her mouth to answer, and then she shakes her head instead. The Avvar keeps staring at the sky, silent and patient, and clearly not satisfied with her silence. “I suspect Jan would have wanted an Andrastean funeral,” she finally says.

He shrugs and walks off without another word.

They burn their dead — lest they rise again, like the _vámpíriok_ of Baba's tales. Two casualties: Jan, and one of the imprisoned Inquisition soldiers, who, from what Margo can tell, succumbed to sepsis.

Blackwall, Amund, and Cassandra help build the funeral platforms, mostly from the random wood they find around the abandoned fort. Harding has somehow managed to save most of the blood lotus haul, and Margo spends an hour huddled by a small fire pit, making the extract to ensure the pyres burn hot. It feels like the most insufficient thing in the world. She moves through the tasks like a zombie, making the necessary motions, but focusing all her energy on keeping the scream from breaking through her skin.

At one point Blackwall comes to sit next to her. The Warden says little. Instead, he packs a small clay pipe with a fragrant melange of herbs and what is probably a local variant of tobacco, his movements methodical and unhurried.

“I still remember the first time I lost a friend in battle,” he comments finally, his voice pitched low, the sound swallowed by the thick, sulfurous mist that rolls over the marsh. Margo is abstractly glad that he doesn’t phrase it as a question. With some small part of her mind not occupied with managing the internal howl, Margo realizes that this odd bearded man probably knows her better than any of the others, simply by dint of training with her every single day, and of carefully identifying all her ticks, hang-ups, and hesitations. War has its own language.

“Does it get easier?” she asks.

He shrugs. “Not particularly. Just duller. It'll feel like you have blades under your skin, but it’ll pass.” He stays silent for a while. “My advice is, get back to Haven, and get fucking drunk." He huffs a humorless chuckle into his beard, but his eyes crease with sadness rather than mirth. "My treat. Bull and Sera might even pitch in some bits, I'd wager. Mostly just to see you sloshed.”

Margo manages a reluctant chuckle, but then she nods. All in all, sounds like solid advice to her. Whatever helps keep the scream contained.

Evening comes. They ignite the pyres under the endless icy drizzle. Cassandra, as the closest to an Andrastean ritual specialist, says a prayer for the dead. The words wash over Margo like a wave — an abstract force, without underlying meaning. Once the bodies are swallowed up by the flames, she walks off, her mind blank, her only care to keep the howl caged inside.

She’s not sure how she ends up on the ramparts at the outer edge of the fortress. There’s a locked door there, and Margo digs through her pockets until she locates the skeleton key. It doesn’t even begin to budge the lock’s mechanism. In fact, it doesn’t fit, and this, somehow, feels only proper.

“Da’nas.” A quiet, yet somehow steely appellation. “Abandoning the funeral so soon?”

Margo pivots slowly away from the door. She has seen Solas around the camp, of course, but he has not approached her after the end of the battle, nor she him. The injury to her thigh was almost mended by the time they were out of that accursed hall, and she got it the rest of the way with good old elfroot and the obligatory unspecified fungus.

She stares at the elf, the internal scream barely contained. She can’t really make out his features in the damp gloom, but there is something tense about the way he is carrying himself, a kind of banked anger.

Oh, she doesn’t have time for mercurial temper tantrums. Not today.

“Enjoying a stroll?” Margo squares her shoulders. She realizes she’s a hair away from a fighting stance, but somehow she can’t snap herself out of it. “There’s a truly spectacular view of some undead dipshits down there, if you want to take a look.” 

Because, really, there is. Spectacular. Undead dipshits everywhere, just shuffling around. 

Whatever it is about her tone — or her body language — it just seems to antagonize him further. Solas glides towards her, and the usually casual, meditative movement toggles effortlessly into its opposite. There’s something predatory to it now.

He comes to stand a few feet away, blocking her path from the rampart, but then he turns towards the bog beyond the wall, his face in profile. “Yes. A truly spectacular view, if you find grotesque reminders of the nonsensical fragility of life appealing.”

Margo bristles. If he thinks she’s in the mood for cryptic charades, he’s got another thing coming. “Yes, that pesky transience,” she replies caustically, not even sure why she’s angry — or angry with him in particular — but unable to stop herself. “Won't lie — if I'd known that your world's reminders of one's mortality came with shambling, I'd...” She cuts herself off. What would she have done, exactly? It's not like she chose this.

Or did she?

_Let me through._

Solas turns to her then. His facial expression feels like something untenable. Heat beneath the ice. “I will not buffer this death wish of yours any longer, da’nas. It is pointless coddling. If your existence in this world appalls you so thoroughly that you are determined to throw it away at every opportunity, then so be it. I will not interfere.”

Margo just gapes at him. “Are you fucking kidding me, elf?” she finally manages. “As I recall, you were the one running into the hex! Pot — kettle, pleased to meet you!”

He takes another predatory step towards her. “Oh, it is just 'elf' now? And what do you think you are nowadays? What sort of body do you believe you inhabit?” he bites out, and she’s surprised that his words don’t crystalize and fall down as soon as they pass his lips — considering his icy tone. 

She’s so profoundly furious then — at him, at herself, at the whole stupid debacle with the Avvar, at the goddamn bog with its never ending rain, and at Evie’s vampirical jinx bubble, that she has trouble arranging speech into anything more than monosyllabic expressions of rage.

She steps right in front of the elf — too close for polite, but, at this stage, she couldn’t care less. Solas doesn’t back down. He looms over her instead, this side of overtly menacing. Margo points a finger at his chest. “What I am is someone who doesn’t change the subject, or deflect, or start evasive maneuvers as soon as something remotely complicated rears its head!” Well. Maybe she’s still sore at the whole pleasantly polite thing. Then again, they have bigger fish to fry. She can deal with the cold shoulder — but the hypocrisy is a bit rich. “Clearly, you understand how the mark and its hexing vortex worked. I have no more of a ‘death wish’ than you do, so do not patronize me.” There. A multiclausal and somewhat coherent sentence. That should do.

“You have no idea what you are trifling with.” Delivered with something halfway between amazement and resignation, which, somehow, pisses her off even more. Condescending fucking elf. Margo’s tone drops into the acidic but studiously polite sarcasm of academic theory debate, which, truly, is not something she’d wish on her worst enemy, because from there, it’s no holds barred.

“Then do enlighten me, by all means. Unless you came all the way out here to pick a fight over having to spend a little extra magica on healing me, in which case — do accept my sincere apologies. I’ll make sure to pack more potions next time we are kidnapped so as not to impose on your labor overly much.” 

A kind of tremor goes through him, and then he grips her shoulders, and backs her into the wall, eyes, hot as coals, on hers. Margo stares into his face, and realizes vaguely that taunting him at this point is neither wise nor helpful — for either of them — but she can’t quite help herself, because that thing is still screaming from under her skin, and whatever might drown it out is fair game. She meets his gaze as one would an adversary’s, her jaw tight. She’s pretty sure the elf growls. One of his hands firsts into her hair. It cushions the back of her head against the wood, but that’s epiphenomenal — he uses her braid to angle her face up. Margo, who by then is in a burn all the bridges (and maybe blow up whatever’s left for good measure) kind of mood, raises an eyebrow in challenge. He hooks the other hand into the belt of her leather trousers, knuckles cool against her skin, and pulls her against him.

And then he presses her into the wall and kisses her like a man starved.

The kiss is as chaotic as the mood — their teeth scrape together, and it takes them a few seconds to catch each other’s rhythm. And then it’s a mess of lips, and tongues, and hands trying to find skin to touch, and coming up on entirely too much armor and clothing in the way.

He breaks away abruptly. The hand that’s not in her hair comes up to her neck, palm against the curve of her throat, fingers tightening ever so slightly. And then his lips find the hollow over the pulse point, just under her jaw. It’s more bite than kiss, just shy of painful, and firm enough for adrenaline to mix in with the rest of the hormonal chaos. It goes straight to her core. A harsh breath escapes her, and Margo arches her spine, bringing her hips flush against him. He drives her back into the wall, a thigh pressing between her legs and forcing her to widen her stance. And then his mouth is on hers again, stealing her breath.

She’s not sure what makes her regain her wits. Maybe it’s the glazed expression in Solas's eyes that likely mirrors her own — anger mixed with lust, of course, but underneath it, an odd, inarticulate, complicated anguish that finds neither escape nor lexis. Or maybe it’s the fact that she’s had enough death in her life — and enough grief-fueled messy, emotionally wrenching sex in its wake — to recognize exactly what sort of path they’ve embarked upon. Or perhaps, after most of their more intimate encounters happened in the Fade, where she never experienced her dreamworld body as something other-than-hers, this feels too fundamentally different. Here, in the all too real drenching rain of the deathly bog, the unfamiliar triggers and predilections of her new reincarnation give every touch a vertiginous kind of “first time” quality that keeps her from zoning out and going blindly through the motions. 

Or maybe it’s just that, when it’s all said and done, she likes him too damn much to use him in that way.

Margo tries to slow down, changing the register from frenzied to tender. It turns out to be no easy task, not without false starts. She succumbs to temptation, and nibbles at his lower lip, and he responds immediately, pressing her harder against the wall, his hands sliding down to her ass, his mouth on her neck again. She bucks against him, and grazes his earlobe with her teeth — because, well… it’s right there anyway, might as well do something about it. She can feel the moan deep in his chest, against her ribcage, and she isn’t entirely sure who the sound belongs to. But then, she forces herself to bring her hands to his cheeks — and away from trying to work out how to unfasten his belt — and wipes the rain away with her thumbs. She’s not sure he’ll follow her cues, because, at this point, they’re both almost too far gone to stop. But, after a few long moments, he does. 

They stay tangled up — carefully, precariously still, not daring to move against each other, but also unwilling, or just plain unable, to come apart. At length, their breathing calms and the wildness drains out of them both. The kiss that follows turns into something deep, but slow, like the current of some wide, unhurried river. When they come up for breath, Solas moves his hands to cup the back of her head, gently this time, and brings their foreheads together. And then, after a second of hesitation, she responds by rubbing the tip of her nose against his. 

When he looks down at her, the glaze is gone from his eyes. His face is a strange combination of shock, bewilderment, and uncertainty — and a kind of longing she doesn’t really know how to interpret beyond recognizing something similar in herself, a sharp constriction that feels like vertigo and heartbreak, all rolled into one.

“Oh, letha'laim, forgive me. I…” He swallows. “I got carried away.”

She’s not sure which part he’s apologizing for — the argument, or what followed. A little chuckle that bears an awfully close resemblance to a sob escapes her. “See? Just like stuffing plants in a sack.”

It takes him a second to connect the dots, and then she gets a surprised, rueful little smile, and he shakes his head.

“If this is what your experience of ‘stuffing plants in a sack’ is like, then I am surprised you noticed the wolves at all. I think I may have willingly chosen to get eaten.” And the statement almost launches Margo into resuming their activities, because this is the first time the flirt doesn’t feel like a superficial, cheeky provocation for the fun of it. This time, it has real heat behind it.

Slowly, he steps back, and Margo shivers from the sudden chill of his absence. “But you are right. This… This was indefensible. It must stop.”

Margo meets his gaze then. “I never said that.” And because she’s pretty sure he’s about to back-pedal in panic, she steps closer, bridging the distance between them, and encircles his waist with her arms. That should make the fleeing in terror a little more cumbersome, she decides. “What I do think, first off, is that we really can do better than this. Let’s not make Varric’s day and reenact a ‘Maile does Tevinter’ with a cameo from the living dead.”

His eyebrows draw together. “Sometimes, ma da’nas, I truly have no idea what you are saying. Though, based on your earlier speech to the Avvar chiefling, I am fairly certain that the statement is at least somewhat scandalous.”

She chuckles. “What I am trying to say is that you can’t drown existential dread in angry sex. Speaking from experience, existential dread has amazing buoyancy. It just won’t sink. Also, it tends to make for awkward morning afters, which multiply the existential dread in the process. Which, in turn, is kind of the opposite of the desired effect.” She realizes she’s babbling again, but at least the scream inside doesn’t lacerate at her quite as much anymore.

Solas hesitates, then he brings his own arms around her, and rests his chin against the top of her head. She huddles into him, ear against the hollow of his throat, and listens to the accelerated, but slowing heartbeat. They stand like that for a while, until the rain begins to drip in unpleasant little rivulets down the collar of Margo’s armor.

Eventually, he steps back, hands on her shoulders, and peers down at her. Night has fallen, but she can still see his face in the eerie, iridescent glow of the bog. 

Of course, the thrice-bedamned thing would phosphoresce.

“What ails you, Margo?” That feeling again of him tasting her name for its hidden properties. “Truly? You lost a friend, but I doubt it is just that. Or… you and the rogue had been close?”

She notices the slight hitch of hesitation on ‘close’ and shakes her head. “I think we were comrades. But no, nothing like that. It’s…” The task of trying to encapsulate the sheer enormity of the clusterfuck they’re in feels like an impossible proposition. Or to capture exactly the sticky, hollow, inescapable feeling of guilt at having stolen another’s life, however justifiably. 

She turns it around instead. “I’m not the only one who came out here with swords swinging. As much as I’d like to flatter myself in believing that this was all because you worry over me, I’m pretty sure that’s not all there is to it. What ails you, Solas?”

She can hear the sigh, and his shoulders slump a little. “I do worry over you, ma da’nas. There is no flattery to it. It is a simple fact. For better or for worse, you have imbricated me into your predicament, and to absolve myself of the responsibility it carries would be... disingenuous. Though that, of course, is not the sole reason for my concern." The ghost of a familiar cheeky smirk flashes across his features. "And I would appreciate it if you gave me less cause to fret." 

She smiles. Really, warm and fuzzies? You're still there?

“But you are correct.” He pauses, seemingly gathering his thoughts, or perhaps formulating an answer. Good on him for trying, Margo thinks to herself. “Whatever causes the fortune-bending aura — whether it is intrinsic to the mark or to the Herald herself — we must assume that channelling more magic into it will have unpredictable and potentially disastrous consequences.”

Margo’s eyes widen. Of course. She hadn’t even considered this, too focused on the minutia of their recent fights. The Breach. If Evie is to close the Breach, it stands to reason that powering the mark would amplify the jinxing forcefield. She cannot even imagine what effects this might have, but, considering the evidence, there is no reason to think that anything good will come of it. It is most likely to cause some kind of apocalyptic event.

She frowns. “So, really, what you’re saying is that we’re all very likely fucked anyway, pardon my Orlesian,” she summarizes.

“Orlesians would use a slightly different expression, but the meaning certainly remains. Yes.”

Ah. Well, that puts existential dread in a whole new perspective.

Before she can respond, Solas cocks his head to the side, listening. She follows his lead — and, sure enough, she can hear someone walking up the staircase to the ramparts. Several someones, in fact, because strands of conversation drift to where they are standing.

“… do we have to do this now, Hero? Vintage Warden shit is all well and good, but it’s late, and I for one, wouldn’t mind a night cap and some sleep.”

“It shouldn’t take long. I just need you to pick the lock.”

That’s Blackwall, and he sounds like he will not be deterred.

“Blackwall is right. If we are to leave tomorrow, there is no sense in mounting a separate expedition just for this. I, for one, can’t leave this awful bog fast enough.”

“Aww, what’s not to like, Seeker? Besides, it’s not the place, it’s the company.” Varric, mocking.

Margo looks at her companion. “Do we own it? Or do we go hide behind those sacks over there?”

He gives her a quick, critical once over. His eyes linger on her neck for a few seconds, and his expression turns a little guilty. “Hmm. Your collar is short, and I do not currently have the magica to fix this.” 

Oh great. The elf left her a souvenir. “No chance it’ll just pass for a battle bruise?”

He shakes his head, and purses his lips in what looks suspiciously like a little smile. “Not a one, unfortunately.”

Margo nods. “We will never hear the end of it. Sacks it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by the excessive buoyancy of existential dread.
> 
> Next up: Busted! Also, discussions with Varric, who always has impeccable timing


	19. Complicated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo, Solas, and Varric discuss bad luck.

“All right, Hero. Happy now? I believe we got everything." 

The noises are difficult to interpet from their makeshift shelter. There is a vexded "oof," which Margo identifies as the universal sound for something heavy being lifted. A curse follows — one that invokes an unspecified creator deity’s hairy nether regions — and something hits the cobblestones with a muted "clang."

“It’s denser than it looks.” Blackwall sounds none too pleased.

“Do you require assistance, Warden?” Cassandra, with a trace of sarcasm in her voice.

“No, Lady Cassandra. I'll manage. Wouldn't mind if you—”

“Yes, yes. I’ll carry the torch.”

Shuffling.

The barricade of burlap behind which they are wedged doesn’t offer the best acoustics, but Margo allows herself a moment of cautious optimism. The trio got what they were looking for — why Varric felt the need to stand guard at the door while the other two were searching the room is beyond her, but, at last, it seems that they might be on their way. She steals a quick glance at Solas. The elf is sitting cross-legged next to her, his back propped against whatever’s contained in the sacks — the substance has the consistency of cement, and offers about as much cushioning. Despite their ridiculous predicament, Solas’s expression remains placid and vaguely amused.

Bastard.

“Varric? Are you coming?”

More shuffling.

“Actually, Seeker, I think I’m going to stick around and look through those crates one more time.” 

A skeptically disapproving “hmpf” from Cassandra, and something that sounds a whole lot like "greedy little man."

“What was that, now?”

“I always forget, Varric, that you are, first and foremost, a thief.”

“You wound me, Seeker, I’m an upstanding businessman. Besides, if it doesn’t belong to anyone, it isn’t stealing.”

“Lady Cassandra, with due respect, I’d rather not keep holding this thing forever. I'm sure Master Tethras will join us once he’s done satisfying his acquisitiveness.”

Damn the avaricious dwarf.

“I will remind you, Varric, that you now answer to the Inquisition. Therefore, anything you should find that would benefit us should be turned over into the Inquisition’s possession. And _not_ pocketed.” 

“I promise that if I find anything relevant, you’ll be the first to know.”

Margo looks at the elf again. He lifts one shoulder in a shrug. And then he reaches for her braid, arranging it to fall over her shoulder, and incidentally concealing the side of her neck that bears the incriminating evidence. He nods, apparently satisfied with the results.

Well then. She supposes he doesn’t share her optimism. In either case, until Varric leaves, she supposes they’re stuck.

Two sets of footsteps retreat, echoing down the stairs. And then, silence.

“All right, you two. They’re gone. You can come out now.”

Of course.

Solas cocks an eyebrow in question, and Margo is suddenly struck by the profound absurdity of the situation. In fact, it reminds her of the time when, at fourteen or fifteen, she snuck back into the house past curfew, only to come upon Baba, who, naturally, had been waiting patiently at the kitchen table, shelling beans. Baba had given her a quick once-over, nodded at the fresh hickey on her neck, and declared in a conversational tone: “The next time the boy feels the need to mark his territory, tell him I have a nice rowan in the yard he’s free to piss on whenever the mood strikes him.” And that had been the end of that conversation, safe for an angelica seed tea added to Margo’s morning breakfast routine.

She suppresses a fit of giggles and stands up to face the music. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Solas unfolding from his sitting position.

“Well, well.” Varric cocks his head, eyes narrowing in performative puzzlement. “All right. I just have to ask. Not that I don't understand the appeal of a romantic escapade, but… why _here_? Really? I know, I know — this place is a hole in general, but there are probably better accommodations to be found than…” He makes a vague gesture meant to encompass their particular surroundings. “Whatever this is. So, walk me through how this works. Purely out of authorial interest — for my next book.”

Apparently, Thedas has not yet discovered the joy of gothic romances, and Margo decides that she is not about to give the local best-selling author any ideas on the subject.

“Whatever do you mean, Varric? We simply needed a quiet place to talk strategy.” Solas somehow manages to make the statement sound simultaneously completely innocent and thoroughly dirty.

“Oh, ho ho! Is that what they call it nowadays?” Varric swaggers over to their hiding spot. He sits on one of the burlap sacks closer to the ground, and rests the giant crossbow across his knees. “So. Our mysterious apostate is going to own up to what he’s been up to when no one’s looking? Or did he have a change of heart? Unless, that is, our alchemist _did_ slip him something?"

Margo groans. "Varric, is this really necessary?"

The dwarf grins, entirely unrepentant. "Just trying to stay faithful to the demands of the genre, Prickly. But wait… that gives me an idea. Do you mean to say that all those times the advisors have been locking themselves in that war room of theirs to ‘discuss strategy’…” The rogue's expression turns speculative. “You know what, this has narrative potential. I should really talk to my editor.”

"Was there something you needed, Varric? Aside from dubious literary inspiration, that is?" Solas looks entirely unperturbed — and pleasantly polite. Margo bites the inside of her cheek to hide the smile. Well. As long as she is not on the receiving end of said pleasant politeness — or of the underhanded sarcasm — she doesn’t have much quarrel with the phenomenon. 

"Ah, but inspiration is a fickle mistress, Chuckles — I'm not one to argue with her mysterious ways." The dwarf winks.

The incessant teasing _is_ annoying, but aside from that, Varric has been a steadfast ally for her on this side of the cosmic membrane. One way or another, of all the people she could imagine discussing the hex with first, he is the obvious choice. If only he’d reign in the smarminess.

Time to reroute. “Varric, I’ve been meaning to ask. How’s Bianca?”

Varric stills, his eyes narrowing suspiciously, and Margo files the reaction away for examination at a later date. Could it be that the crossbow has an eponymous living counterpart?

“What do you mean, Prickly?”

Margo offers him an innocent smile. “Your crossbow. Are you still experiencing occasional aiming issues?”

Varric’s expression turns from teasing to deadly serious. “All right. So you weren’t kidding. You really want to talk business.”

Margo hesitates for a second, then she nods. It still doesn’t feel altogether comfortable — like a small betrayal of Evie’s trust. But she supposes that if the situation is as dire as they suspect, then the necessity to formulate a working solution is more pressing. She’ll sit Evie down at the first opportunity she gets.

“And you, Chuckles? You’re having similar concerns?”

Solas inclines his head to the side. “You have seen our last fight, Varric. I have similar concerns regarding my ability to cast reliably — and it would seem that others are equally affected." 

Varric's thumb taps a distracted rhythm against the polished wood of his crossbow. He stares absentmindedly into the murky courtyard below. “To be honest, I was still hoping it might all be in my head. Prickly, you noticed it ever since the rift in the Hinterlands, didn’t you?” Margo nods in confirmation. The dwarf turns to Solas with a grim expression. “I’ve seen watching you try to work around it since then. I’m also pretty sure the Seeker has noticed, but, to be honest, I couldn’t quite work up the courage to ask her outright — in case she decides I've finally lost it. It doesn’t help that it’s not bad every skirmish. The one in Redcliffe’s chantry with the Tevinter fellow went... decently enough.”

Margo’s ears prick at the mention of a "Tevinter fellow." Were they fighting Tevinter mages?

“Or at least not poorly enough to be noteworthy.” Solas’s voice is thoughtful, and Margo supposes that he is trying to work out the implications of the differences between the skirmishes.

“Yeah. Her Heraldship kept messing with the rift, and the rift kept messing with the demons, so all in all, we did fine. But this past one was…" 

“We barely survived,” Solas finishes for him. 

“Yeah. And some of us didn’t.” Varric meets Margo’s gaze. “Sorry, Prickly.”

She nods again through a jolt of guilt that shoots through that part of her she never had to really contend with before.

“So. What’s the common denominator?”

It is clear to Margo that the dwarf’s question is rhetorical — one that he knows the answer to. And yet, he wants a confirmation — the paradoxical desire for the definitive diagnosis. Margo looks at Solas, whose pleasantly polite mask has morphed into another expression, one that she has seen before without actively classifying it. The best she can come up with is "resignation," although she has a sense that it is less situational, and more intrinsic to the elf’s very nature. A kind of profound, rooted fatalism.

Varric, for whatever reason, is looking to her for the answer, and she almost resents him for it. “The main common denominator is Evie,” she finally says.

The rogue nods thoughtfully. “That much, I'd figured. What I can’t work out is what causes the variations. Because this shit isn’t bad all the time. So what else?”

“We believe it is a hex of sorts, centered on the Herald. If I were to speculate, I would say the fluctuations are related to the intensity of the fight. Whether caused by the mark or by something else, it appears to deflect danger from her at the expense of siphoning luck away from her allies.”

Even before Solas has a chance to finish his explanation, Varric is nodding his understanding. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Except I don’t understand how it manages to affect arrows. I mean, I can see how it might affect my aim — but Bianca?” He shakes his head. “Have you come across anything like this before, Chuckles?” 

“I have not — though, in itself, this means little. Magic could take any number of forms — Tevinter magic is distinct from what is taught in the southern Circles, Nevarran magic differs from what is practiced by the Dalish... And there are always those who experiment.”

“Prickly, what about you? Not that you’re a magical specialist, and I don’t know how much of your memory has returned. But at this point, any little bit might help.”

Margo thinks. The idea of the luck siphon is in fact perfectly familiar: it is at the heart of almost all cosmologies of witchcraft. Whether you want to call it a hex, a curse, or the evil eye, the concept can be found in most cultural traditions she’s familiar with. But in her world, magic, if it exists, is a quiet, unassuming sort of thing — in other words, nothing like it is here. And it stands to reason that something that works in a quiet, unassuming sort of way — even if, to her inexperienced eye, its effects still seem spectacular — could almost escape notice, eclipsed by the more flashy magic practiced in Thedas.

Except that the Avvar shaman had some similar ideas. “Could it be Avvar?” she finally asks.

Solas raises his eyebrows. Varric cocks his head to the side with a puzzled expression. 

“I am unfamiliar with Avvar culture,” Solas volunteers. “But it would seem that their priests and their mages are one and the same.”

Margo nods. “The big Avvar who decided to join up with us — Amund — I think he was the one who helped get us out of the cell, too.” The thought brings up the memory of her encounter with Imshael, and Margo represses a shiver. “He had mentioned something about luck. He posed it as a… conceptual problem. Or a riddle of sorts.”

Varric’s squint turns guarded. “You know, Prickly, you sure talk fancy for a little scrap of an elven rogue."

She offers the dwarf a tight smile. “Chuck it up to an obsessive reading habit.”

Varric chuckles. “That, I can’t fault you for. So. The Avvar you said?”

Margo nods. “He asked me why two hunters on the same hunt might have radically different luck, where one gets mauled by a bear, and the other escapes unscathed.” She pauses, trying to extrapolate the implications. “I think you can expand on that — why does one hunter bring game back regularly, and the other can't? Is it always because the first hunter is better?”

“Do you believe this to be merely religious reasoning, or a model that reflects a practical approach?” Solas asks. Margo shoots him a quick look. His face bears the now familiar expression of intellectual curiosity. He’s got it. This is really the heart of the question. She finds herself smiling up at him. 

There is something very soft about the elf’s return gaze, there then gone again — hidden behind the mask of amiable aloofness.

Margo forces her thoughts into a semblance of order, and away from a sudden and very distracting memory of recent events. In particular since the culprit of said distraction is standing right there, sporting a quietly speculative expression — and looking, at this particular moment, impossibly charming.

“When you two are done with the lingering looks, can we return to the matter at hand?” There’s not much bite to Varric’s sarcasm this time. In fact, he sounds like an indulgent grandparent, gently chiding two particularly rambunctious kids.

Margo hopes the blush isn't too visible in the greenish glow of the bog. They were talking about something relevant before the blasted warm and fuzzies launched their stealth attack. What was it? Ah. Witchcraft. Luck. Avvar cosmology. “I think it’s practical first — though they do sound like they have a complex theory of spirit relations that overlays the practicality.”

“Wait, Prickly. Don’t the Avvar worship demons?” There is very obvious distaste in Varric’s question.

“I doubt they _worship_ demons,” Solas offers. “Although it is likely that the Avvar have their own system of transacting with the denizens of the Fade. As do mages everywhere — even when all they have been taught is hostility and fear, it is impossible to avoid interacting with spirits entirely.”

Margo finds herself nodding. What had Amund called Imshael? A wishmonger god. “Yes. I think they call them gods, but I don't think the relationship is one of worshipping, exactly. Not, at least, in the Chantry sense of the term.” She taps her finger against her lips, trying to think about how to articulate the difference. When she looks up, Solas quickly averts his eyes, pretending to gaze over the marsh. She suppresses a smile. Oh, sure, undead shit, still walking about aimlessly in glowing muck — fascinating stuff, that.

Varric just shakes his head.

All right. They’re all adults. She has a damn doctorate, for crying out loud. Time to get her shit together. “I don’t know if spirits are the only gods the Avvar have, or if it’s a more encompassing category.” Margo tries to remember whether the shaman had said anything about what happens to ancestors. Do Avvar ancestors become place spirits, in the way that they sometimes do in Earth’s shamanic traditions? Or do they reincarnate? Or go to some other, better place — an afterlife of sorts? She'll have to track Amund down and pick his brain once she has a spare moment. “My point is that, for the Avvar, luck is not a random, unknowable quantity. It’s something to negotiate over with their gods. And it’s read as a kind of message — misfortune is taken to be a sign of a god’s ill favor, and therefore a reminder to reestablish a good relationship, as it were.”

“See, Prickly, this is where we get into complicated theological shit, and I get nervous. Because this whole thing…” another vague gesture, but one that encompasses the sky this time “...feels to me like a pretty giant sign of the Maker’s ill favor — of the ‘screw you’ variety — and I have a feeling he’s not the negotiating type.”

“The important question,” Solas offers, returning them to the problem at hand, “is whether the luck-bending aura is something that precedes the Herald's acquisition of the mark.”

Varric's eyes widen. "Shit, Chuckles. Are you saying what I think you're saying? Because if the kid had her...'luck suck' when the Conclave exploded... Andraste's Silky Knickers." He shakes his head, his expression suddenly queasy. “I guess it'd explain why she survived. Just don't let Roderick catch wind of it." The dwarf rubs his face with both hands. "You know what, I'd much rather assume that it came with that green glowing thing on her hand until we learn otherwise. But I suppose we do need to find out how long this has been going on. Prickly, you’re in the best position to ask her Heraldship. I think she’s noticed that at least the three of us — Seeker included — have been giving her funny looks, and I don’t want the kid to get defensive or evasive about it.”

“Do you think she knows? You’ve fought alongside her a lot more than I have. Is she aware that there is a problem?”

“Oh, she’s aware that there's a problem. She apologizes profusely after every fight for being clumsy and getting underfoot. But I personally don’t think the kid realizes what the problem _is_. She knows she’s not trained for combat. Which in itself is pretty damn strange, if you think about it — what in the Void was Trevelyan senior thinking? Why didn’t the kid get proper military training?”

Margo looks to Solas, who is balancing back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Why would you find her lack of training strange, Varric? A noble’s youngest daughter might not garner much attention, overlooked in favor of his older children or his sons.”

“See, Chuckles, that’s where you’re wrong. That's not how nobles go about things. First off, you always train all of them, in case something happens to the heir. And second, it’s not like the younger kids have anything better to do — the reason they get thorough training is to keep them busy, and out of the parents' way.”

Margo nods in agreement. “For what it's worth, I don’t believe Evie was overlooked. My impression was quite the opposite — that her father was overprotective and... omnipresent, for lack of a better word. She does cite the guy every three sentences, like he is the final authority on any topic known to man.”

"And _that's_ what's been bugging me, Prickly. Think about it. Youngest daughter, no military training, not exactly the paragon of social finesse. And yet, she gets sent to the Conclave. What was she _doing_ there?"

“That is an interesting question." Solas's eyes narrow in speculation. "It would seem, lethallan, that it falls on you to find out more about the Herald. For now, let us hope that the answer to her peculiar properties lies in her past, and not in the magic of the mark. I fear that should it be the latter, it would bode badly for our prospects at the Breach.”

Varric sighs again. “Well, shit. I haven't considered that. And here I thought we were having problems now.”

***

By the time the three of them come off the rampart, the camp is quiet. Solas bids them goodnight first, with a soft “sleep well” in Margo’s direction that sounds somewhere between a question and a suggestion. Varric lingers for a few moments, watching the elf walk away towards one of the tents.

“What’s going on, Varric?” Margo asks, since the dwarf is obviously waiting to have a private word.

“Listen, Prickly. I know I like to tease you two — can’t resist, you both get so damn flustered about it. But... Look. I can tell ‘complicated’ when I see it. I'm not judging, mind. But... be careful.”

Margo frowns. “I appreciate the advice Varric, but… what do you mean? By complicated?”

Varic chuckles humorlessly. “Just that the Nightingale likes to have a nice selection of strings to pull on, from what I can tell. Let me give you an example. Last time we were in Redcliffe, we picked up this Tevinter mage — well, more accurately, he picked us. He hasn’t officially joined yet — guess it all depends on whether Evie ends up getting the mages or the Templars involved — but he’s been hanging around, to the spymaster's great irritation. He sounds pretty sincere to me, but he’s a Vint, as Bull would have it.” Varric sighs. “Anyway, since you now have a reputation as the expert on Tevinter mages… No offense, Prickly. I’m sure it wasn’t like that." 

Oh no.

The dwarf shakes his head. “I thought I’d give you a heads up. Don't worry about the mage, I don't think you're his... type. But that won't stop Leliana from throwing you at him to see if you can get some information others couldn't. If you manage to get anything, great. She'll use you next time something like that comes up. If you don't — well. It's a pecking order sort of thing. You did lose a patrol. She might not kill you outright, but it doesn't mean she's forgotten.” Varric scrapes his chin again, a meditative gesture. “So, as I was saying. Complicated.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by Angelica Archangelica , which in some traditions of European herbalism has been used to control fertility, and which may or may not have an equivalent species in Thedas, but either way might be something that Margo will need to look into at some point in the future.
> 
> Next up: back to Haven, comedy of errors


	20. Hidden Costs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo returns to Haven, and Maile's bad decisions catch up with her.

To exist in the Fade is a paradox of thwarted expectations. When Margo opens her eyes — the ones afforded to her by the dreamworld — she expects some familiar vision: the field of summer grasses, perhaps, or the Escher sketch staircases, or some place in Haven. She is met with none of these. Even the cosmic shitgibbon is in absentia, a strange sense of _distance_ confirming the creature's irrelevance to the space she now occupies. She is greeted with the textures of another's domain.

She finds herself in the kitchen of Baba’s old village house – the clay stove in the corner, with its obligatory pot of baked milk; the rickety old table, one of its wobbly legs stabilized by a box of matches. The herbs – inula and fireweed and thyme — hang in fragrant bushels from the rafters. Beneath the tablecloth — gaudy with a riot of faded pink blooms, their plastic sheen worn to the underlying fabric — a miscellanea of letters, receipts, recipes, and gods only know what else Baba keeps stashed under it to "keep it safe."

Margo turns around, taking in the interior of the house, and trying to recall its original shape. What has the dream altered? The faces in the "red corner," where the icons would go if Baba weren’t so performatively the village witch, stare at her with familiar watchful gazes. A strange assemblage of communist leaders and Christian saints, of benevolent and wrathful deities harnessed from different pantheons. Chubby little figures molded from salt dough crowd around small offerings of milk, sugar, and cigarettes. Above them, the photos of kin in fuzzy sepia — all conspicuously, unsurprisingly, women. The matriline. Roots of her roots.

In Baba’s view of kinship, men are an incidental abstraction.

Margo finds herself sitting at the table, and she pulls the tea kettle towards herself, giving it an exploratory sniff. It’s an earthy, scraping, abrupt scent – fireweed with something else, hypericum maybe, and a cold spice in the finish, like black currant leafs. Her attention is drawn to an old cup, chipped, with a pattern of orange chess pieces against the white porcelain. She pours herself some of the steaming, fragrant liquid.

“Ah, little thistle. Have you come for another visit?" Baba appears in the doorway to the bedroom, her hair wrapped in the usual kerchief. She wipes her hands on her apron. "I was just about to start on the gooseberry jam.” 

Margo stills. For a split second, she suspects subterfuge – Imshael taking on her grandmother’s familiar shape. But, with another look at the old woman, she relaxes. No. She would know Baba even if she forgot herself. There is no replicating her.

“Not quite as fun as calling on the wolfling, hmm?” Baba chuckles. There’s a kind of mocking disapproval to the old woman’s expressions – and an intimately familiar one at that. “Trouble, that one. Old Baba's got a nose for these things. _Na,_ it is what it is. Good to stop by sometimes. You can’t forget where you’re rooted.”

“Baba, what is this place? Why are you here? Are you…” Margo swallows. She doesn’t know what to make of this gift that feels like a punch in the gut. She has a vivid recollection of scattering Baba’s ashes under the aspen that grows at the top of the bend in the river, the bank speckled with the purple and yellow blooms of broomrapes. “Are you real?”

The old woman considers her, a smile on her thin lips. Even in old age, Baba has retained her infectious smile, the skin around her eyes creasing in a starburst of crowfeet. It used to feel like the face of her own future, and Margo mourns the loss of that intimate, irreplaceable similarity. The only parallel left is her new body’s eyes, one shade paler, a less saturated gunmetal gray — and so unlike her former body’s greenish hazel. It is a small thing, but in the dream logic it feels important that, even though everything else is different, she should have inherited something of Baba’s eyes.

“As real as anything is around here.” Baba picks up a tub of gooseberries from under the table, and settles on a stool across from Margo, a paring knife and a miniature spoon in hand, ready to seed her harvest before plopping the berries into the pot. “Have you forgotten the old songs, my thistle? I have taught you better than that.”

Margo frowns at the dream’s strange leaps in logic. But before she can ask Baba for clarification, the old woman begins to hum, and Margo stills. She knows the song. Baba used to sing it to her well into her early childhood – a strange, frightening little tale with a sweet, simple, repetitive melody. Baba never sang it to Jake — her brother got all the cheerful tunes. But not Margo. And, years later, she would sing it to her own daughter, for the time that had been allocated to them by whatever cosmic, ungenerous hand is in charge of such things.

“Baby, baby, rock-a-bye,” Baba sings in her cracked, old woman’s voice. _“On the edge you mustn't lie. Or the little grey wolf will come. And will nip you on the tum. Tug you off into the wood. Underneath the willow-root_.”

Margo shudders, suddenly really hearing the words. “Baba, why do you keep calling him 'wolfling'?” There. That seems like the relevant question. Doesn’t Imshael refer to Solas as a wolf? Maybe she should have payed more attention to dream analysis instead of dismissing it as pseudoscientific hogwash when she still had the Internet at her fingertips — or, minimally, a library with a reliable catalogue. 

Baba shrugs. Another eviscerated gooseberry plunks into a copper pot. “There are many names. I call you ‘little thistle.’ Or ‘my heart.’ Or ‘my soul.’ All are accurate. We are known by different things, none of them sufficient. Your mother called your _lélek_ ‘Margo.’ Not a bad name, but not for a breath soul. Besides, the breath soul’s gone now, so you don’t need to worry about that.” Another gooseberry joins the others in the pot. “But I name your í _z_. Only your í _z_ matters, little thistle. That is where the roots grow. It’s what makes us return.”

Margo frowns, trying to piece together the scraps of memory. Baba had explained to her the concept of soul dualism when she was still very young — too young to really consider the problem of souls, let alone their multiplicity. She’d never questioned it before, perhaps because she’d never questioned Baba’s own messy ethnic identity, somewhere between Slavic and Finno-Ugric and Rroma, and staunchly uncommitted to a single frame, or even a single language. Baba, the compulsive code-switcher. But the belief in multiple souls, she remembers from when she was roped into teaching a history of religion course by her department — outside of her area of direct specialty, but what can you do? There are versions of this scattered throughout different shamanic traditions. Of course, there was no way to predict that any of this would eventually become relevant — she should have paid more attention.

In retrospect, Baba’s wild, indiscriminate syncretism — that tendency to gather plants, and myths, and gossip, and mix them all together – suddenly feels like a careful practice of dissimulation. Hard to say what’s hidden in the mixtures.

“Why did she name me Margo?” she finally asks. It seems like as relevant a question as any. “Did she like daisies? Or was it a literary reference?”

The old woman shakes her head. Another gooseberry goes _kerplunk_ into the copper pot. “Your mother took after her father, so she didn’t understand about pearls anyway.” Baba sighs. “Sometimes it skips a generation, the knowing. It’s a scattered sort of thing.”

Margo wants to ask Baba what she means, but the dream vacillates, a ripple disrupting its hidden armature.

“Before you go, my heart.” Baba fixes her with her graphite-gray eyes. “The girl. Not a child, but forced to be one. You will help, but ask nothing from the other one. Never ask for anything. Never for anything, and especially from those who are stronger than you. And should he offer, do not accept. Some trades are too dear.”

And then the dream shudders and fragments.

***

They set out from the hell bog earlier than expected, hoping to make the journey swiftly, and Margo is relieved that they do not linger. There is no time to catch up with Evie — a raven alights on Scout Harding’s shoulder in the early morning, when the perennial drizzle isn’t much more than a thick, ominous mist. Among other updates Margo is not privy to, the bird carries a message signed by Master Adan. The length of the procurement list makes Margo wonder whether the alchemist is trying to single-handedly open a new museum of natural history. 

Evie and her entourage move on ahead without the rest of the scouting party. Before they leave, Margo gets a pointed look from Varric, a quick hug from the kid, who asks her to stop by for tea once they are all back to Haven, and a curt nod from Cassandra. Relaying Jan's final request put the Seeker in a rather sour mood. No one wants to be the bearer of that sort of news.

Margo catches Solas’s gaze on her. “A moment of your time?” He casts a quick glance towards the others.

She approaches, still feeling thrown by the rapid switches between formality and intimacy. At this point, almost every sentence they exchange in public feels laden with double-meaning.

“I came across this book during our travels to the Avvar keep. The Herald thought that you might put it to good use.” The elf hands her an old, battered journal. The paper is water-warped, the writing smudged, but still readable. Margo leafs through the journal, careful not to damage the it further. Most of it sounds like completely demented ravings interspersed with esoteric tangents on demons, but from what she can gather, it also offers a detailed formula for a poison called “Tears of the Dead.” Apparently, even dead shit weeps, probably from too much aimless milling around in a horrid bog. And then, she realizes that the damn formula requires death root — also known as Brother Rufus’s tentacled monstrosity that started this sordid mess — and Margo doesn’t know whether to cackle maniacally or break into sobs.

Idiotic optimism being what it is, she opts for the former.

“Something amusing, lethallan?” A smile flickers in Solas's eyes, but he seems otherwise distracted.

“An excess of cosmic irony. But, thank you. This is perfect.”

“It was my pleasure.” Another almost smile, a small bow on the saucy side of formal, and the inescapable sense of double-entendre.

She watches the elf glide away to rejoin the others.

***

For reasons unknown, Blackwall chooses to stay behind with Margo's group. He picks a spot at the very back of their small procession, alongside Margo. For the first day, the conversation remains sparse and mostly monosyllabic, but Margo still gets the impression that the warrior has taken it upon himself to babysit her.

By mid-morning of the second day, a western wind shreds the oppressively low cloud cover, and the overall mood thaws into something approximating companionable chatter — though the bearded bear is missing his usual sardonic beats, his performative grumpiness ceding way to genuine discomfort.

By noon, Margo decides to take the bull by the horns. “All right. You’re making this awkward. Out with it.”

He clears his throat. "You know plants pretty well, then?”

Margo shrugs. Earth plants, sure. Here, she’s only scratched the surface. “I have some sense of the practical stuff, but I’m just starting on the Alchemy path. I don’t know half of what I should, and not a hundredth of what I would like.” She pauses. “What’s on your mind?”

“Do you know much about, ahem… flowers?”

Where the hell is this going? She pulls Auntie’s formulary out of its usual pocket. It somehow survived her sojourn with the Avvar — for whatever reason, her captors chose not to take the book from her. Perhaps they simply missed it. It is so worn from constant use that it practically blends into the coat lining. “I can look something up if you want. Any specific use you need? Poison? Healing? Something else?”

Something akin to a blush creeps over the skin not hidden by the spectacular beard. "Ornamental.”

He is actually quite endearing in his discomfort. Margo hides a smile. Blackwall strikes her as a decent sort. Whoever the lucky recipient of the flowers might be, they could do worse. "Ornamental I’m less familiar with, but let's see if we can find you something aesthetically pleasing.” She leafs through the book, quickly scanning the pictures. She remembers seeing something that looked decorative. Some kind of lily? “How do you feel about crystal grace?” She hands him the book for examination.

He takes a long look at the page. “These are beautiful. Grow in the Hinterlands, as I recall. But...” His brow furrows with some unarticulated concern. "I wouldn't..."

Margo frowns, trying to interpret his sudden unease — a faraway, stormy cast to his green-grey eyes. It occurs to her that their color is unlikely — by Earth standards, anyway. "Is there a symbolism to these that troubles you, Warden?" Might as well make the best of it, and find out if Theodosians attach meaning to their flowers.

Blackwall shrugs. "If there is, I'm not aware. They're medicinal, you said?"

Margo grins. "Beautiful _and_ practical."

It earns her a chuckle, and the Warden's expression smoothes out. "Appropriate, then, I suppose."

He waits with quiet resignation, clearly expecting her to follow up with the logical inquiry. Margo glances at the warrior, amused. It's the first time since Jan's death and the Avvar mess that the smile doesn't feel like something dredged up by force from murky depths. “I’d add a sweetener to the water, and maybe a bit of vinegar, if the kitchen has it. Or even a few drops of a clear spirits. The bouquet will last longer that way.”

Blackwall harrumphs. They walk in silence for a while. “You aren’t going to pry?” he finally asks.

“Nope. But if you want to talk about it, you know where to find me.”

A long pause. “I'll keep it in mind.”

For the rest of the journey, the time Margo doesn’t spend walking is occupied with stuffing burlap sacks full of plants.

***

They get to Haven by the early evening of the fifth day. She hauls the sacks of ingredients to the apothecary, with a little help from Blackwall, but Adan is nowhere to be found — as usual. She briefly considers going to bed early, but she decides against it. Her dreams feel like they require entirely too much intellectual effort, and she feels drained and unmoored, as if she’s forgetting something that needed to get done.

Margo exits the apothecary with a vague hope for a hot dinner that does not involve armadillo-pig hybrids that taste faintly sulfurous. The courtyard is eerily empty, and there is no light coming from inside the nearby houses. She doesn’t notice the shadow stalking along the wall until it is too late.

Before she can so much as blink, she finds herself flat on her back, in the snow, with an unfamiliar elf’s knee crushing her throat. “Well. There you are.” A redhead — striking in her own way, with delicate features spoiled by a habit of professional cruelty. Margo tries to wiggle from under the woman, and away from the knee crushing her windpipe, but the elf pulls a thin, stiletto-shaped dagger, and brings it right under Margo’s left eye. Margo stills, attempting to conserve the little breath she has left. The world frays and fades at the edges, her ears simultaneously ringing with a high, whining keen, and full of cotton fuzz.

“I don’t know how you’ve managed to convince the Nightingale that I somehow put you up to it, you ungrateful little shit, but don’t think that I’m going to let this go, whatever your status with the Inquisition is.” The voice, which to Margo sounds so far away it is at the edge of irrelevant — like a muted TV in another room — is oddly flat, almost expressionless, despite the harsh content. With what remains of her thinking capacity, Margo concludes that this must be the mythical Charter. “But I hear you’ve had a whole personality change since your little improvisation at the Breach. Made yourself indispensable, did you? Ingratiated yourself with the Herald. Clever, that.” The elf drags the blade of her stiletto in a vertical line across Margo’s cheek. The pain cuts through the fog of asphyxiation, but it too is distant, as if it’s happening to someone else. As is the feeling of something warm trickling down her cheekbone, and into her ear.

“So. Seeing how I can’t just put you down like the rabid bitch in heat that you are… As you seem to think that fucking that Tevinter bastard was worth the lives of five of my people, you owe me five deaths. At my request, and to my specifications.” The elf brings her face close to Margo’s, and, in the absence of any peripheral vision to speak of, it is all that she can see. “Pay up, and I might consider the debt settled.” And then, the redhead hacks up in the back of her throat, and spits into Margo’s face.

And in the next instant, the elven agent is gone, faded into the night.

Margo stares into the night sky. The stars twinkle, alien and indifferent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by the costs of body snatching. In the RAGT-verse, there are no free meatsack upgrades ;)
> 
> As always, thank you for your reading eyes, kudos, and comments <3 Ugh, RL is kicking my butt atm, so updates are slow. Thank you for your patience!


	21. Fade to Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo gets some much needed sleep.

Time stretches, marked by nothing but the howling of the wind. Eventually, lying supine in the snow in inarticulate terror becomes a profoundly unpleasant experience — the icy touch of melting snow is insinuating itself beneath her clothes. Margo sits up with a groan, rolls a loosely packed snow ball, and uses it to wipe off her face. The skin of her cheek smarts despite the numbness, and the snowball comes away a bloody mess.

She gets up, slowly, one foot, then the other, legs still wobbly from oxygen deprivation. Somewhere half-way nausea overtakes her, and she leans down, hands on her knees, trying to breathe through the spasms twisting her stomach. When the sick feeling recedes, Margo stares blankly at the snow at her feet with absolutely no idea what to do next. The entire experience seems distant, as if it is happening to someone else — a stranger, perhaps, or someone she knew once, long ago, but whose name and features blurred with time. Her body obeys her with a delay — as if she is piloting it by remote control, from a galaxy far, far away. But then, the damaged nerve endings in her cheek make themselves known, and she is promptly slammed back into the all-too-real here and now.

Margo hesitates. It seems that the most logical order of business would be to stop the blood dripping down the front of her coat — because leather is a bitch to clean, and while she supposes she could ask Solas to perform his nifty cleaning spell, she’s pretty sure he’s got better things to do with his magic than offer her late night dry-cleaning services. She makes her way back to the apothecary, stumbling only once on the way, which she files away as a win. An elfroot potion later, mercifully ready-made, and the skin on her cheek begins to tingle, but when she touches the cut her fingers come away stained red. She wipes the blood off on a rag and scans the vials for a generic poison antidote. She downs that too, just in case.

An elfroot salve and another health tonic later, and the blood is still trickling, slow and sluggish, but there. So the alchemical formulas have a limit to their efficacy.

She doesn't particularly want to think about trying to sew the wound shut. The thought of crude bone needles and catgut decides her, even if she still feels a little sheepish knocking on the elf’s door, just on account of cosmetic concerns. Her body already has a truly impressive collection of scars, although none of them are on her face. What’s one more? Besides, beneath the terror, the glimmer of understanding jostles with anger at the injustice of being punished for transgressions not of her own doing. _You took her body. Did you expect it to come for free?_ Margo stifles a sigh. Her predecessor really did fuck this up spectacularly, and then Margo herself added to the mess with her clumsy attempts to survive Leliana. That Maile’s particular brand of poison wasn’t the one Margo herself would have picked doesn’t mean that the outcome is entirely unexpected — certainly, she didn’t sow what she’s now reaping, but cause and effect, right? As Jake would have it, karma is a bitch.

Still. It is hard not to feel a sense of ownership — or at least some kind of custodianship — about the body you’re squatting in after a while. Like it or not, this is the one she now has. The chances of another body hop are pretty slim in her estimation. Also, the blood’s getting everywhere, and making a mess of things. And it hurts. So she trudges across the courtyard and knocks on the door of Solas's cabin. The windows are dark, but that might not mean anything. Considering how much time Solas must be spending in the Fade, she suspects that, if left to his own devices, he likely sleeps as much as her former cat.

Maybe cats are Fade walkers. That would certainly explain the sleeping patterns.

There is no answer, so she knocks again, but is only met with silence. She is about to turn around — although between the prospect of tracking down the Iron Lady and sporting a picturesque scar on her cheek, the latter seems vastly more appealing (after all, the Seeker rocks one of those just fine) — when the door opens.

Solas appears in the doorway, with the rumpled softness of sleep still about him. His left cheek bears the imprint of a pillow. His appearance takes Margo by surprise, and so they stare at each other for a few seconds with what is probably matching bewildered expressions. And then his gaze focuses, the sleepiness draining out of him, and he is back to his usual deceptively unassuming sharpness.

His eyebrows draw together at the sight of the bloody mess on her face. “Ma da’nas, what happened?”

She is too exhausted and ragged to give the switches in nicknames due consideration — she’s starting to get a hang of his lexis, and this one she identifies as the private, but not overly intimate endearment. Possibly more than friends, less than other things. “Maile’s bad taste in men is catching up with me,” she offers, gesturing to her cheek.

Solas’s expression turns icy. “Who did this to you?”

Margo shakes her head — she has the distinct impression that he might be misinterpreting what she meant. “No, no. That wasn't... It was Charter.” At his deepening frown — clearly, his interpretation had taken him elsewhere — she shakes her head again. “She was in her right, in a way. Maile did betray her, however inadvertently. I just… it won’t stop bleeding.”

Solas closes his fingers around her forearm, his touch gentle but firm as he guides her inside. He pushes the door shut behind them, and then he steps closer, his touch soft on her face. He peers at the cut. Margo turns her head to the side to offer him a better viewing angle. “I took an antidote already, but what do you think? Some special kind of poison? Or just a really deep cut?”

The elf’s voice is grim. “I do not think this was caused by poison. An enchanted weapon, perhaps. A rune," he adds at her blank stare.

Runes. Because what was really missing from her life are runes. Although… On a better day, this would make for an interesting proposition. Are runes actually powerful text or are they material, or alchemical in nature? “A rune as in some kind of sacred writing?”

“Is this what runes are in your world?”

Margo nods. “Something like that. Not here, I take it?”

“A mineral, usually infused with the essence of a slain spirit.”

Margo notes the hard edge in his voice. She steals a glance at him from the corner of her eyes — her face still tilted as he examines the gash in her cheek — and the way his jaw is set suggests that he doesn’t approve of the practice. “My world has a history of pretty appalling food chains as well, for what it’s worth.”

He passes his hand over her skin. There is a sensation of something burning itself out, and she grits her teeth, but then the jolt of pain is replaced by a fierce itching as the spell knits the skin together. Through all this, it dawns on Margo that the way his magic feels under her skin has become completely familiar, and she suddenly comes into awareness at just how many times over the last few weeks he’s patched her up. Although she supposes that almost everyone at camp is pretty damn familiar with this particular sensation. Why do they have so few mage healers? 

The nausea from her damaged throat is also gone, and she takes a deep experimental breath. The air goes in smoothly.

“There. It has stopped." He pauses. "The scar should fade in time.”

His eyes are dark in the unsteady light of the fireplace, and he looks perturbed and abstractly aggrieved.

“Well, what’s one more scar, right?” Margo shrugs matter-of-factly.

He gives her a puzzled look. “You do not think of this body as fully yours yet?”

Margo shrugs again. “It isn’t my own, technically.” She tries to formulate the strange, disarticulated relationship. “Most of the time, I no longer notice. As long as I don’t spend time around reflective surfaces. Fortunately for me, they seem in short supply in Haven anyway. I have yet to see a mirror.”

He hesitates, and then his hand comes to her cheek. He brushes away a stray lock of hair. “Perhaps... it is time you found one. It may help you domesticate your new appearance.” Another short hesitation, but then he lifts his shoulder in a deceptively light shrug. “You are beautiful." His tone is placid — a neutral remark, like an observation about the weather. "There is a certain value in acknowledging that for yourself." He pauses, ruminating. "You overlook whatever weapons chance has put at your disposal at your own risk."

She meets his gaze. “Solas, I know you find Maile’s appearance pleasing. But I have little to do with that. Or it with me. Nor was I trained to _weaponize_ my physique. I am not, in fact, a bard, in case that weren't abundantly obvious.”

“There is little about Maile I find pleasing, da’nas. But my point is elsewhere. In what way would your original body be a more accurate reflection of whatever you call ‘I’? Is Cassandra defined by her cheekbones, and not her faith? Varric by his chest hair and not his wit? Blackwall by his beard, and not his loyalty? You are here now, and your body's previous occupant is no less dead for your scruples.”

Margo tries to ignore the pang of unease at the implacable practicality of his pronouncement. She huffs a humorless chuckle. “Solas, Varric is defined by his chest hair. Scratch that. He defines himself by his chest hair. Have you seen his outfits? In fact, I think the chest hair is an inherent part of his wit.”

His gaze on her softens, and he returns her half-smile. Margo’s eyes travel to his lips. Had there truly been a time when she hadn’t been sure whether he was handsome?

“The way you animate this body, or any other, is unique to you. You choose to inhabit it in a certain way, and that is what I was referring to.”

Margo sighs, and then she shakes her head and chuckles. Did the elf just summarize Bourdieu’s concept of habitus while turning it into a compliment? Come to think of it, it would have been so much easier to explain to her undergrads if they’d had the concept of the Fade. Maybe they can get to Foucault next, and then take a tour of continental philosophy.

She squashes the mental babbling. In either case, she understands his point perfectly well. She only has to think about the way Imshael wears his doppelgänger disguise to get a very clear illustration. And suddenly she no longer feels quite so disembodied, and, despite this, the prospect of the scar does not phase her either. And to add insult to injury, she suddenly really wants to find a mirror.

Ugh. From French philosophy to vanity, in one fell swoop. The damn elf will be the death of her.

“Have I mentioned that you are a shameless flirt?”

His eyes crinkle in amusement, but he purses his lips, mock-serious. “So you keep telling me, but I am simply stating what is the case. Besides, why shameless? If it is something we both enjoy, what would obligate us to embarrassment?”

Margo cocks her head, suddenly indecisive. The ball is in her court again, but her eyes keep returning to his lips, as if drawn there by some irrevocable gravitational force. She forces herself to meet his gaze. Naturally, he has noticed. He does a rather shoddy job of hiding the slight smugness. “Distracted?” His voice is quiet, barely above a whisper, and there’s something about the quality of that soft, intimate tone that sends a jolt of acute vertigo through her. It feels like falling, and for a few long seconds she can’t shake it to save her life. And then she realizes, with an emotion awfully close to terror, that as far as her existence in this world is concerned, the elf is at once the hurricane, and the eye of the storm. Poison and remedy.

Another untenable ontological contradiction.

Well, then. Playing coy with herself at this stage seems just plain silly. This has long since evolved beyond the inoffensive crush phase, so no point in pussyfooting about it.

But this too shall pass, right? Oh dear Unspecified Creator Deity, please let the Persians be right about that. Of all the things, _this_ , whatever it is, is not something she can afford. Not at present anyway.

Margo regroups. “If you must fish for a compliment, then yes. Distracted. But…” She raises a finger, and waves it in the air for good measure in the universal sign of ‘I am about to make an important point here.’ “There is an imbalance in our relationship. I am always the one coming to you for help, and I have a feeling I’m accruing a massive karmic debt. So, first, I hope you don’t charge interest. And, second, is there something I can do to repay you? To balance the scales a little?”

Solas frowns in puzzlement. “A karmic debt? This is a concept from your world?”

Ah. Right. Wrong colloquialism again. How does she explain the notion of karma? Margo tries to think through a formulation that would port well. She catches him observing her through the process, the trace of a smile on his lips, as if he’s enjoying the view. Well. Nothing wrong with a man who enjoys the sight of you thinking.

“Your world may have something similar. It actually just means action and refers to the relationship of cause and effect, though I’m simplifying. What I’m trying to say is that I am constantly the recipient of your help — and I’m afraid I have little to offer in return. I suppose I can supply you with various alchemical remedies, but considering the main ones mages use are lyrium potion, and considering the stuff is addictive and quite likely bad for you, that’s hardly a good way to settle the debt.”

Solas seems to weigh her explanation. “Not all my actions were beneficial to you, ma da’nas, even when they were intended as such. Not to mention that you have also saved my life on multiple occasions. As to ‘settling debts,’ I do not like the finality of the phrase. Is not the goal of such a settlement to terminate a relation one finds burdensome?”

Margo chuckles despite herself. Clever man. “Let me rephrase then. Is there anything you want? Or need?”

She expects a cheeky flirt in response, so when his expression turns deadly serious — and a little forlorn — Margo isn’t quite ready for it. “Your wish,” he says, finally.

Margo frowns, puzzled.

“I would enjoy learning more about your world. Or any other topic of your choosing. I have… many questions. Perhaps even over wine, as in the image you had crafted from the Fade.”

Ah. The hypothetical memory bubble she sent him from the Avvar prison. She is vaguely surprised he still remembers — in the mad scramble of her escape and the battle that followed, she had almost forgotten their Fade conversation herself. She’s so thrown by this request, however, that she blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “Do you in fact drink? Wine I mean?”

Solas shrugs. “On occasion. I did more frequently in the past. Many lifetimes ago, it seems.”

Margo narrows her eyes, suddenly suspicious. Does he mean his younger years, or does he literally mean a different lifetime? She wouldn’t put it entirely past him to remember his former reincarnations, if such things exist.

“You may bring the wine, and we will consider part of the debt, if there is one, repaid.” Another small, very private smile.

Margo rubs her face with both hands, as much out of exhaustion as to distract herself from the now apparently permanent impulse to kiss him. Right. Adding wine into this mix may be not the most idiotic idea she’s ever had, but it’s definitely got its eye on the hall of fame.

Let’s pour this here canister of kerosene on yonder garbage fire. What could possibly go wrong?

Instead of all that, she tells him about Charter’s debt repayment plan. Solas stays silent for a long time. She avoids looking at him — because she doesn’t particularly want to find an expression of pity on his features, even though she has a strong suspicion that this is precisely what she would encounter if she checked. But he surprises her. When she eventually steals a glance, it isn’t pity. It is pure, white-hot anger mixed with disgust, and overlaid with that now familiar resignation. But then the resignation wins over — that deeply rooted fatalism again.

Whatever it is about the emotion, it propels him to act. He steps closer, puts his arms around her, and pulls her in. She returns the embrace, snaking her arms around his waist. He plants a soft kiss on her forehead. “One day at a time,” he says quietly. “I, for one, am not convinced that any of us will survive past the closing of the Breach, considering the Herald’s unique properties, so the prospect of you being turned into an assassin against your will might never come to pass.”

What sort of fucked up mess is she in that this is, in fact, reassuring? “Ever the optimist,” she chuckles, and looks up. His eyes in the soft glow flash with an odd amethyst gleam. He tightens his arms around her. “It has been a long time since I have been accused of optimism.”

She leans her forehead against his chest, and closes her eyes. “Well, you're in luck. Apparently, I have it in excess — idiotic optimism, that is. If you'd like some, I’m happy to share.”

She feels the quiet chortle reverberate through her. “I will keep the offer in mind.”

They stay silent for a time.

“You are exhausted. How is your dreaming?”

She glances up at him again. “Rather more active than I'd like, honestly.”

He nods. “Any more visitations from Imshael?” There is a banked tension in his voice.

Should she tell him about the bathhouse dream? It just feels so wrong, somehow, and she still can’t shake the feeling that maybe she is the one bringing it on herself.

“Imshael is… around. But it’s not just him. I have some other very vivid dreams — the problem is more one of control than anything else, I suspect.”

He seems to reflect on this, then nods. “You have a facility with entering the Fade. Of what I have seen of your dreams, they are… very visceral. You do not touch the Fade lightly. I suspect this is because it is the more natural state for you, though why, I am unsure. Perhaps that is a feature of your people or your world more generally. But you do not know how to control it, nor are you, in fact, a mage in any conventional sense of the term. My ability to help you — or train you — would be hindered by my own magic.” He pauses, seemingly vacillating on the edge of a decision. “But I could control the dreaming for you, and allow you to regain some of your strength. Or at least, some equilibrium.”

Margo looks at him in mild puzzlement. “You’re offering to stabilize my dreams for me?” She’s seen him do this before, so it seems like the logical conclusion.

He shakes his head. “No. I am offering you Fadeless sleep, at least for a moment. If you wish to lay your head somewhere and rest without dreaming, my bed is at your disposal. At close proximity, I can buffer you from the Fade for a time.”

Margo’s eyes widen. “You would do this?”

“I cannot — and would not — sever you from the Fade." His face twists in distaste "And you must learn to control this ability of yours sooner rather than later. But…”

“Please. Fadeless sleep would be fantastic.” She beams at him.

“Provided you do not mind sharing my bed.” There is a twinkle of humor in his eyes.

Margo gives him a mockingly disapproving squint. “I suppose there’s been a precedent, so what’s another time? Or are you fishing for another compliment?”

“I am offering to help.” Now he’s just looking cheeky. “But should you feel the need to offer a compliment in return, I am all ears.”

Margo shakes her head, and then she just laughs. “You know what my grandmother would have said about you? That you’re a very special kind of bad news.”

Solas’s eyebrows draw together, but his smile warms his face. Margo decides she finds the expression rather fetching. “Ah, a backhanded compliment, then. I suppose it will have to do.”

The next five minutes are spent restocking the fireplace. She hangs her coat on the back of the chair — again. At this point, this is becoming a habit. She kicks off her boots. And then she occupies the spot by the wall. Solas sits next to her.

“I have to be awake to do this,” he explains, a slight note of tension in his voice.

Margo is about to say something, but then a jaw-splitting yawn overtakes her. “Wake me up when you get tired? I just need a couple of hours of deep sleep.”

He nods, pulling the thin blanket over her.

“I am profoundly in your debt,” she mumbles.

She thinks he says something in Elvhen, but she’s too tired to parse it. In the next moment, she’s out like a light, and there are, blissfully, no dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by Pierre Bourdieu's notion of the habitus, which Solas has managed to turn into yet another flirt.
> 
> Next up: Evie's past comes to light (a little bit, anyway)
> 
> Apologies for the slow updates, folks! Thank you for reading and for your kudos and follows and comments, as always. They are a joy to me. Life Stuff (TM) is grimly overwhelming at the moment, so I am writing updates to this story when I can/have the energy, which, atm, isn't very often. I've not abandoned the project — thank you for your patience.


	22. None Now Remember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some of Evie's past comes to light, while muddying the waters further

Margo opens her eyes to the sight of a bald, shriveled little man staring at her in doleful disapproval from the opposite wall. The villainous looking fellow memorialized in the painting puts her in mind of an abbot or some other morally uptight religious figure — it is entirely beyond her why anyone would consider his mug to be a suitable form of decoration. How Solas manages to fall asleep with that thing presiding over the surroundings is anybody’s guess. She’d at least put a sheet over it.

Come to think of it, who might have lived in this house before the elf requisitioned it? Unless, of course he was assigned to it by the powers that be? 

A shaft of sunlight slanting through the window lets Margo know in no uncertain terms that she overslept, but at least she feels rested. She cannot for the life of her remember the last time she woke up after daybreak.

She sits up and looks around. The hut is empty, its usual occupant nowhere in sight. The mattress — straw and horsehair, or something like it, she guesses — is dimpled at the edge, as if someone had sat there while she slept. Under her hand, the coarse linen bedding retains a trace of warmth. So Solas had stayed beside her, departing only recently.

She gets up, shrugs on her jacket, and pulls on her boots.

The sneaky, theatrically spy-like maneuver she undertakes next — a furtive peeking out of the side of the window to check whether the courtyard is empty — makes her feel utterly ridiculous.

It does lend useful, if not particularly heartening information. Master Adan is discussing something with a male elf right at the threshold of the apothecary. Another bloke — large, lumpy, and ruddy from cold and exertion — is chopping firewood with an expression of bored despair. And then there’s another character she has never seen before — a dark-skinned fellow with a fussy undercut and rather artfully arranged black curls. He is wearing a partially plated, very flashy piece of ornamental armor that looks distinctly ill-suited for the weather — though that, in itself, is nothing new. The only person she has so far encountered who dresses sanely and with a clear understanding of the local climate is Amund. 

The fussy fellow is arguing with a Chantry sister, and neither looks particularly pleased. 

Margo turns on her heels and marches to the back of the house. She eyes the narrow window dubiously. The last thing she needs is a reenactment of Winnie the Pooh. Well. As long as you can get your head and shoulders through it, the rest will follow, right? She throws the window open, takes a quick peek to check whether she has an audience, and, reassured that she does not, she exits that way.

She lands in the snow and recoils immediately with a muffled curse. To be fair, her opposite number — one of the rabbitty piglets locally called “nugs” — clearly did not expect such outrageous behavior from the two-legged denizens either. It squeals, skids in place for the first few seconds of its initiated flight response, and then it takes off down the hill in the direction of the forge.

If Varric could see her now, Margo is pretty sure he would be howling with laughter.

Right. It has been at least fifteen years since she snuck out of a guy’s house through the window. A special kind of bad news indeed.

Margo hesitates, trying to determine which direction will least likely lead to detection. She decides to follow the nug. If someone asks, she can always claim that she is on a mission to collect the creature’s droppings. Master Adan does use nug dropping ash for something or other. Come to think of it, this is an interesting question — she will have to check what nug droppings might be used for. A source of nitrates? 

By the time she levels with the tavern, Margo drops the sneaky act. So far no one has paid her any particular attention. The most reasonable thing to do would be to follow protocol, and report back to Torquemada — for whatever unpleasantness the spymaster has concocted for her this time — but the prospect of doing so on an empty stomach does nothing for her mood. Tavern it is.

“Hey, Margo!”  The moment she steps over the threshold, she is accosted by the Qunari. Bull is presiding over a table of very efficient looking mercs.  “Come along now. Grab a seat. Met the Chargers yet?”

Introductions follow.

Krem, she decides she likes right away. The others look a lot more closed in on themselves, and focused on each other — a tight-knit group with little use for outsiders.

Bull claps her on the back. “Heard you all came back last night from the Mire. Missed you at training this morning. You’re usually the first up and on the grounds. Slept in?”

The question feels unmistakably loaded.  “Sorry, Bull. Yeah. Tangling with Avvar and dead shits will do that to you.”

That seems to satisfy him. “Hear there were demons.”

She wonders what he’d make of Imshael. “Not for my group.” 

Krem gestures at her in question, and then he passes a plate of food and some kind of muddy brown concoction that smells of hay and quite possibly earthworms. Margo supposes it is probably meant to symbolize tea. She gives him a grateful nod despite the questionable drink, and she digs into the root vegetables and lard mush. Flissa’s communal grub is nothing if not spartan, but Margo decides that she’s not going to be picky about it. At least, it’s free. From what she can tell, the system is simple. Basic necessities are provided by the Inquisition. Everything above that — and this includes both bathing and alcohol — is out of pocket expenses. Adan doesn’t seem to be selling his wares, though it’s entirely possible that he has some kind of arrangement with Sedgwick. And perhaps the overall economic arrangement is different for the local nobles — and, she would guess, even more different for the underclasses, such as for those elves who are not explicitly members of the armed forces. 

“What did I miss?” she asks Bull between two mouthfuls of tasteless, fibrous, slimy starch.

“Met the Vint yet?”

Margo shakes her head. “Not that I know of. What does he look like?”

The Qunari shrugs. “Like your typical Vint. Fancy. Full of himself. Mage." He spits out the last word like something that got stuck between his teeth. But then, Bull's expression turns shrewd and calculating. "Then again, I hear some people like that sort of thing.”

Margo waits until she’s finished chewing her mouthful of mystery root vegetable. Then she takes a sip of “tea." Gah. It tastes exactly like it smells. “No doubt some people do,” she offers with a bland smile. Two can play this game. “No accounting for taste.”

The Iron Bull chuckles, the sound reminding her of some kind of large, metal gong. “Ever tried a Qunari before?”

Margo chokes on her drink. “Wh-... Tried  _ what _ now?”

A couple of mercs snigger. Krem shakes his head in indulgent disapproval. “Stop giving her shit, chief — she’s just back from the field. Give her a second to acclimate.” He turns to Margo, his expression amused. “Don’t worry about it. You’re too blonde for him anyway. He likes ‘em redheads.” 

Margo narrows her eyes, and takes a quick glance at the Iron Bull. What is he trying to achieve here? Sure, his expression is teasing — just your regular bawdy banter of the typical mixed-gender army variety. But the eyes — well, eye, to be exact — remains calm, and eerily perceptive. Like what she imagines the eyes of a Stasi officer might have looked like. In fact, the apparent come-on doesn’t really feel like one. More like a chess game.  _ Knight to queen’s bishop 3 _ .

Ugh. She sucks at chess.

Margo buys herself time by swallowing more tea, and asking for a refill — to Krem’s approving nod. Oh Dear Unspecified Deity, does this nice young merc actually  _ like _ this liquid horror? 

“Just curious, Krem. Blondie here has never come across a Qunari before. But she came… across a Vint, from what I hear. Makes one wonder — been ‘in touch’ with the Vints, but not with the Qunari. How come?”

More sniggers, though a bit forced by the sound of them.

Oh, she’s so not in the mood for this. Especially because she has the distinct impression that the Ben Hassrath is actually having two conversation at once. One for the benefit of his companions — though if they know him as well as she thinks they do, no one’s fooled. So, on the surface, it’s predictably lewd jokes about Maile’s sexual escapades and rather lazy propositioning. And then there’s the content in the background. The implicit subtext being something like  _ I’m not buying what you’re selling, so you better come up with something more convincing. _

Margo forces her facial muscles to smooth out before the frown settles, though her jaw still tightens in irritation. She thought they were… well, not friends, exactly. Still. Why is he suddenly doing this? She can’t shake the feeling that there are always two parallel agendas that get folded into each other where the Qunari is concerned. Except, of course, this is not the first time this has come up. Sera’s truth or dare game was the first occasion. 

Wait a second. Torquemada assumed she was spying for the Qunari. Is Bull assuming that she is spying for Tevinter?

All right. He wants double-speak? She can do double-speak. Except, she has the distinct impression that her only shot at getting out of this is to confuse expectations — or, at least, to sidestep the question. Or to redirect. Hmm. Maybe she can turn this around, and kill two birds with one stone. 

Margo leans back in her chair and gives the Qunari an appraising once-over, letting her body language morph into an imitation of a kind of devil-may-care sauciness. “What’s the question, Bull?”

His good eye narrows slightly. “Oh, I’m just curious. Familiar enough with Vints, but never seen a Qunari, so… I’m wondering if you might be from Tevinter, Blondie.” There is an odd weight to the question.

“Never set foot there,” Margo responds in perfect honesty. 

The Qunari’s expression remains inscrutable, but he leans back, mirroring her casual pose. “Then how come?”

“A streak of bad luck, perhaps?” she offers, and gives the Ben Hassrath a look that she hopes matches his own. The one where there seems to be a surface meaning for the general audience — and an underlying, targeted question.

It’s subtle. In fact, so subtle that if she weren’t looking for it like her life depends on it — which it quite possibly does — she might have missed it. But there’s just a tiny fraction of a movement to the Qunari’s good eye — a tension, there then gone. It’s followed by an almost imperceptible nod. And then his mouth stretches in a good-natured leer. “Well, my door’s always open, Blondie. If you ever feel like sampling the other side.”

There are more chuckles from the peanut gallery, and a couple of the Chargers give her appraising looks. Krem’s expression remains closed and thoughtful, but he offers her more tea, which she accepts. The conversation drifts to more neutral territories, and Margo tries to finish her grub without looking like she’s in a hurry. The taste no longer registers. Once her bowl is empty, she stands up, offers the assembled company a mock military salute, and makes for the exit.

“See you on the training grounds this afternoon, Blondie.”

Disregard the chuckles, and the message sounds a lot like _this_ _conversation is far from over._

*** 

Margo walks to the forge next, hoping to get a replacement for her lost daggers — they never surfaced after the Avvar debacle. Master Harritt hands her a generic set — she’s not, by any stretch of the imagination, a weapons expert, but they seem like perfectly adequate tools for slicing something to shreds. The smith surveys her critically. “You want something fancier, I can work with you, but it’ll take time, materials, and some money. Then again, considering you have a tendency to lose your weapons...” He trails off, a disapproving scowl on his features. Margo nods, vaguely apologetic. 

“Well. Take care of them this time.” Master Harritt walks away, leaving her planted in the snow.

Maybe she really should start thinking about acclimating. For real, this time. To the body. To the weapons. And to her new role, whatever the hell it is. It doesn’t seem like she’s going back to her world any time soon. Or ever. What did Baba say? The breath soul is gone, anyway, so no need to worry about that. The breath soul, of course, being the one that is attached to her body, the enfleshed essence of it. And if that’s gone, then…

The thought sucks the breath out of her, and she stands there, looking blankly at the men working the forge. She’s not going to see her brother again and hear about his derailed romances. Or listen to him play Bob Dylan on his old, seven-string guitar. She won’t get woken up by the damn cat at 4am because that’s when it decides to come in for a cuddle. She won’t buy an expensive plane ticket to fly back home to tidy up her daughter’s grave. Or get badgered by Uncle Janos and Aunt Ljubica about when she’s planning to finally settle down, get married, and have more kids — no sense in lingering on the past, after all, what’s done is done. Or lie down under the aspen where Baba’s ashes are scattered, staring at the clouds drifting against the blue. Or talk and laugh with her old grad school friends, sometimes over late night Skype sessions and too much wine because life has scattered them to the winds, and this is how they meet now. She won’t sit through a faculty meeting with her colleagues. She won’t write that article, or finish that book manuscript. She won’t teach a class ever again. She won’t go on another movie date with the Bulgarian anarchist from the physics department, or discuss Bertolucci cinematography over late night wine and maybe a cigarette sheepishly pilfered from the people over at the next table. Or, even more sheepishly, move on to Game of Thrones, which is what they really want to talk about anyway. Or reminisce about what it was like to grow up in the ashes of crumbled socialist projects. Or to relocate to the “West” and start over. She won’t have coffee at her favorite café, and read a trashy fantasy novel on a Saturday morning, shirking work in favor of a semblance of rest. There is no coffee. She’s not even sure whether there are Saturdays.

Well, at least there might be trashy lit, considering Varric’s writing…

Margo forces herself to focus. There is no helping this. The world is all that is the case. And within that world, there is the giant hellmouth in the sky, and Evie, and however the two problems might be connected.

The movement is hesitant at first — one foot, then the other — but at length, Margo finds herself walking.

*** 

She knocks on Evie’s door, expecting no answer. Surely, the Herald of Andraste is not hiding in her hut while the rest of the camp is in full mid-morning swing, avoiding all sorts of unpleasant responsibilities that come with being the Local Deity Head Honcho’s Officially Selected One.

As it turns out, it is exactly what Evie is doing. “Margo! You came! I’m so glad you’re here!”

The girl gives Margo a tight hug, shuffling her from side to side in an awkward little dance.

Margo returns the embrace, and then she steps back to take a better look at the kid. She is wearing a bizarrely mismatched outfit that involves leather leggings, a very loose, baggy and rather hirsute sweater, an impossibly bright blue kaftan three sizes too big, and the kind of slippers with upturned toes that Margo associates with something vaguely and undecidedly “Oriental.” A strange alternative to the too revealing, unpractical battle armor.

They step into the hut, and Evie immediately sets off to fuss with a tea kettle on a little stove in the corner of the wooden house.

“You’ll have tea, right? I have very nice tea. Not the stuff that Flissa makes. That… I don’t think that’s tea at all. They boil this thing — grubs? No, not grubs. Worms? They’re dry and powdery and I never would’ve thought they used to be wriggly, but Varric showed one to me, before… well, before it’s baked, I guess. Except that he says they’re not actually alive, not in the proper sense, but that was just very confusing, because does that mean they’re  _ undead _ worms? Like those poor people in the Mire?”

Margo smiles, trying to repress the urge to upchuck whatever it is Krem had her drink. “Nice tea sounds really good.”

Evie turns to her with a kind of hopeful, beseeching expression. Margo observes the girl. She really is very pretty. In this light at least, Margo notices the things that she hadn’t paid attention to before. Like the way that Evie’s bob cut accentuates her delicate, almost childish features. The big, dark blue eyes — one shade away from violet under long, thick lashes. The slight plumpness of her cheeks, and the perfect, porcelain-doll complexion. The dusting of freckles across her nose. On the surface, everything about Evie is almost unbearably cute. But there are the other things there, more subtle. Like the worried crease that is morphing into a permanent wrinkle between her brows. 

And the ghost of a scar — in the shape of stylized sun — on her forehead.

It’s faint. So faint, in fact, that Margo would have never noticed it, but for the combination of the fact that Evie's bangs are held back from her face with a narrow strip of purple fabric, of the slight sheen of perspiration because the cabin is inordinately warm. The slanted light of the unusually bright Haven morning catches the faint imprint in the middle of Evie’s forehead, like a silver ghost. Or a watermark, visible only at certain angles.

Evie notices Margo’s inquiring gaze, blushes, and turns around.

“Sorry.” A quiet and miserable utterance. “I’m not wearing face powder. It’s just that I thought, I’d take the day to myself, and then I got distracted, and then…”

Margo walks over to the kid, and puts her arm around the girl’s shoulder. Elves, by and large, are shorter, but she’s actually slightly taller than Evie. “Don’t you fuss over that on my behalf. Also, you know you’re gorgeous, right? You need not worry about that for one bit. It’s not noticeable, especially with how you wear your hair.”

Evie rubs her forehead. “You did, though. Notice, I mean.” Her tone is forlorn. “Bann Trevelyan always says that I need to cover it, just in case. And I have this really nice powder from Val Royaux, but it makes me break out in little red dots which only draw more attention to… well. So I thought… Because I wasn’t going to go out until later…”

Margo takes over the tea preparation. There is a slight tremor to Evie’s hands.

“Tell me about it?” She doesn’t want to pry. Except, of course, she has to pry. And she doesn’t know why the scar is important — except it feels like it is. Why would Trevelyan senior fret over her daughter’s makeup? Wouldn’t that be the women’s job? 

Evie sniffs, still abjectly miserable over the whole thing. “I don’t know. That’s the thing. Bann Trevelyan never explained how I got it, exactly. I didn’t  _ always _ have it, I don’t think, but... It was… It was right around the time my mom went away, but then Bann Trevelyan never talked about my mom. Didn’t much like when I asked him about her, either. And Aunt Lucille would always say something about letting the dead rest in peace — though I don’t know if all dead rest in peace, exactly, because in the Mire, they’re certainly very active, and not very peaceful at all.” She takes a deep breath. “So, actually, I think Aunt Lucille is wrong about that. Not that she’d ever admit it if I ever pointed that out! Always with the  _ don’t you slouch, young lady _ and  _ who will want to marry such a clumsy fool _ and  _ young women should be seen, not heard  _ and  _ when you’re my age, Maker preserve us... _ ” Evie’s face turns resolute, and she continues in a stage whisper, “Asshat. Just a little bit.” 

Margo nods in approval. “From what I’ve heard about Aunt Lucille, I’d say that this is an accurate assessment.”

Evie offers a tentative smile and starts picking at one of the buttons of her absurd kaftan. “Right? I mean, she did call me an abomination once.”

Margo frowns. As far as unflattering monikers go, that one seems rather harsh by local standard — even for an unpleasant old bat. If someone called her an abomination, she might just mix some strong laxatives into their tea. “Why did she call you that?”

That propels Evie towards new levels of bleakness — clearly reflected on her face — and Margo feels terribly sorry she asked. “I don’t know. It’s not like I’m a mage. I can’t do magic, or anything like that. Only mages can be abominable, right? Is that the word? Or is it abominated? I mean, abomination is what happens when mages get possessed by a demon. But those corpses in the Mire were possessed by demons, Solas said, so doesn’t that mean that they’re abominations too? Or is it that if you don’t have magic, you can’t be one, and they have to call you something else?”

Margo shrugs noncommittally. Yikes. Mages can be overtaken by demons? Ok. All right, she can work from this. What does this mean? Epistemologically speaking, what are the implications of that process? She forces herself to think. Spirits and demons are kissing cousins, from what she understands. Mages… Mages have some kind of specialized access to the Fade. The Fade harbors spirits. And demons. Who want something. See: Imshael. Solas had mentioned to her that she is not a mage in the conventional sense of the term, meaning that having control over the dreaming process is not enough to make one a mage. But Solas… there is something important about the elf. Something she almost grasped during their memory return ritual. Something about spirits, and bodies, and…

Oh, bloody hell. All she can remember is the kiss. And how his lips felt on hers. The first time. And then the subsequent times. And then, tongue. Oh, suspiciously absent creator deities, a whole lot of tongue. Very expertly used. And hands. And the way they always feel cool against her skin. And how…

Not helpful. Not helpful  _ one _ little bit.  _ Focus, you fool _ . Where is that stern talking-to from the apocryphal Aunt Lucille when you need one?

All right. Mages, demons, abominations… she needs more time. And a research library. And a reliable informant who doesn’t kiss her every time she’s onto something.

“Right,” Margo finally says. “So…” She can do this. Just… don’t think about the pink elephant. Or elves. “How  _ did _ you come about the scar? Do you remember anything about it?”

Evie hesitates, and Margo has a sudden bout of inspiration. “Because if you’re self-conscious about scars, I can show you mine, and I promise you that yours will pale in comparison. No pun intended.”

Evie gives her a hopeful look. “Really? Oh…” The kid brightens up before getting flustered again. “I don’t mean it like that. I don’t want you to have scars. Scars are bad, right? Bann Trevelyan says that scars mar a woman’s beauty, and make one’s prospects for finding a suitable husband less likely. Though I think what he actually said was something like ‘depreciating value’ and ‘matrimonial market’ and ‘protecting one’s assets,’ though I think he might be confused about how it all works — it’s not like there’s a market out there, with little stalls and shops, and you just go and browse the wares until you find something you like. Right?”

Margo stifles a snort. Bann Trevelyan could use some laxatives in his tea. And be forced to shit outside, in the snow somewhere. “That’s… quite the picture. No, I’m pretty sure that’s not  _ quite _ the way it works.”

“Oh. Oh, good. Because I’m very bad at bargaining. Anyway… oh! Scars!”

Margo lifts her linen shirt and shows off her abdominal incision. “Tadaa!”

Evie’s eyes widen in surprise. “Oh! That’s…”

Margo nods. “A pretty impressive scar, right?”

Evie’s face screws up in a mixture of concern and wonder. “That’s.. You survived a rage demon? ”

Margo nods again and offers Evie her cheekiest smile. “Exactly my point. Scars are just reminders that you survived what life threw at you. I got more, too. See? Pretty forehead scar that’s barely there and that looks like it’s a design isn’t the end of the world.”

Evie sighs. “You think it’s pretty? I mean, it doesn’t look horrific? I just wish… I don’t want to look horrific." 

“You are the least horrific person I know, kiddo. Don’t fret.”

Judging by the quiet gurgling in the corner, the kettle is ready. Margo pours two cups of tea after finding some mismatched clay cups in one of the cabinets. They settle across from each other on two rustic chairs.

She sips, inhaling the steam with bone-deep pleasure. As promised, the tea is fantastic. A hearty, sweet oolong, if she were to follow her taste buds.

“Tell me more about it. Not just about the scar. What was it like to grow up in Bann Trevelyan’s household?”

Evie sighs, blows on her tea, and takes a sip. “I’m not the best example, really. Not like my siblings. I was sick a lot.” Her eyes take on a faraway expression. “Almost all the time, really. Not with the same thing, or anything like that, but… lots of bed rest. As far back as I can remember.”

Margo frowns. Sick? What kind of sick? Could this explain her poor combat skills. “Is this why you’re having trouble with combat? Was your illness in the way of training?”

Evie shrugs. “I guess. Bann Trevelyan said it was important I train, but he never seemed to think it was important that I train just  _ now _ . There were lots of ‘we’ll start next week,’ or ‘let’s wait until Harvestmere,’ or... and I’d get… really tired. Well, not always. Not while… Mom. But then mom was gone… and… Anyway, I guess he just kept waiting for me to get better. Or stronger? Or just less…  _ me. _ ”

Oh you poor kid. “What happened to your mom, if I may ask?”

Evie frowns into her teacup. “I don’t know. No one wanted to talk about it to me. Except... She wasn’t really gone. Not  _ exactly _ . Not forever, anyway. She would come by in the evening, when everyone else had gone to bed. And she’d sing to me.”

Margo frowns. Did the mother die? Or did she leave, and sneak back in to see her daughter? “You mean… when you would dream? She would visit you in dreams?”

Evie shakes her head, and takes another sip of tea. “No. Yes. I mean, yes, sometimes. But it didn’t feel like dreaming. She was right there, like you are right there. And then…”

Margo gives her an encouraging nod. 

“I don’t remember. It’s all jumbled up in there, like an attic someone just keeps throwing things into thinking ‘oh, we’ll get to it during spring cleaning,’ but... it’s always winter? Anyway, it was the year I got  _ really _ sick. Bann Trevelyan kept giving me medicines, more and more of them, but they sure didn’t seem to help. He said… ‘just gotta ride it out.’ But then he invited people to treat me. Except, I think…” Evie huddles around her cup as if chilled, even though the hut is sweltering hot. “I don’t think that worked either.”

Margo tries to piece together the disjointed narrative. Evie’s mom dies — or leaves. Evie herself doesn’t seem certain. Except Evie keeps seeing her mother’s — what? Ghost? Or her actual mother who is sneaking around? And she is ill — though it could also be the psychological effects of losing her mother, whichever way that happened. And Bann Trevelyan decides to medicate at home, but failing that, he summons … what, exactly? A medical commission? Ritual experts? “Is that when you got the scar?”

Evie nods, not looking up. “I guess so. I didn’t have it before, but then I had it… after.”

“So what happened after that?”

Evie stares at her strange slippers. “Not much changed, to be honest. I was still sick. Mom would still come. And then the others started too, sometimes, but I didn’t tell anyone about the others. Or about mom, either, because I didn’t think that’d go over well. Except that Aunt Lucille found out, eventually. Because of the dog. A Mabari. They’re really smart, you know? Had her since she was a pup. And I guess I really missed her. And me and the others, we were just playing anyway. And then she said — Aunt Lucille, not the dog — that I couldn’t stay at home, and that I should go away where they could train me, but Bann Trevelyan said that was out of the question, and that we had to wait. Because Etienne and Moira were still trying for a baby, and until they couldn't have one for sure, no decisions could be made. They even had gone on the Summer Pilgrimage to ask Andraste to give them a son. Though, honestly, I really don’t think Andraste’s in the business of giving out babies.”

Margo chuckles. She can’t follow much of this, so she tries to remember the statement verbatim. What on earth is the connection between sending Evie away and babies? And what ‘others’? And what does the dog have to do with any of this? “Etienne and Moira, these are your…?”

“My older brother and his wife. Bann Trevelyan wasn’t too pleased about that either. When it was clear that they couldn’t… you know.” Evie draws a breath. “Maxwell’s in the middle, but Maxwell made it real clear that he wouldn’t wed, ever. And my sister… I don’t think I’ve ever even met her, she was out of the house by the time I was born.”

Margo frowns in utter consternation. The only thing she caught was that Bann Trevelyan wanted Evie around for… what? A heir incubator, since all the other children proved to be disappointing in that regard? That part, at least, would make some sort of sense. Bann Trevelyan can really go fuck a tree stump, as far as Margo is concerned. “Then what happened, sweetheart?”

Evie shrugs and hugs her legs to herself, resting her chin on her knees.

“It got better, in a way. Bann Trevelyan said he had found a solution. I was maybe… twelve? No. Thirteen. I remember because I got my… my…”

“Your monthlies?” Margo guesses.

Evie nods and blushes. “Yes. And Aunt Lucille said I was a woman grown, now. And Bann Trevelyan said it’d all be alright from there, that we were out of the worst of it. That’s when mom stopped coming.”

Margo frowns, doing the math. If Evie’s mother disappeared around age five, the likelihood of her sneaking around undetected for seven years seems pretty damn slim. So dead seems more likely.

And also, she has the distinct feeling that Evie is skirting around something.

“What about ‘the others.’ The ones you didn’t tell anyone about? Did they still come after that?”

Evie shakes her head. “No. Well, just the one. And that was just the one time.” The kid’s cheeks turn an incandescent sort of pink, and she stares fixedly at her cup. “But never after that. That was it. It was just once, to say goodbye.”

Margo frowns. This seems important — this visitor, whoever he, or she — is. And the blush, too, seems important. “Can you tell me who it was? That visited you to say goodbye?” 

Evie shakes her head. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I…” She looks at Margo. “I would tell you if I could. I actually want to tell someone, and you’ve been such a good friend and listener and... And I don’t have many of those, in case that wasn’t really obvious.” Evie’s rueful smile seems entirely too grave for her young face. “But I… It won’t… come out. Every time I even try to think about it, it sort of slips away. Other things pop into my head that have nothing to do with anything, too. Like… I don’t know, what the masonry looks like in the keep’s cellars, or the pattern on the back of Aunt Lucille’s rocking chair. Or the taste of candied apples. They’re… good thing, but it’s like my mind finds a distraction just so I don’t think about… well. The other one. I’m sorry — I sound completely mad, don’t I?”

“No, kiddo, you don’t.” Margo rubs her forehead. All right. She will sort through this later. There is the other problem they have to deal with. The luck siphon.

“Evie, hun, can I ask you a really weird question?”

Evie’s eyes widen, but then she nods.

“Have you always been… lucky? As in strange, dangerous things would happen to you, but you’d somehow come out alright?”

The kid shrugs with a puzzled frown. “It wasn’t like that when I was really young, I don’t think. Not that many bad things happened then. Not while mom still visited. She’d tell me these amazing bedtime stories, you know? Anyway, no. And I wasn’t always this clumsy, either — it got worse right after my cycles came in. Aunt Lucille said I’d age out of it — that it’s typical when your body is growing — but I guess I never did.”

Margo tries to sort through the mess of information. So. Around the time when Evie hits puberty, the luck siphon manifests. Bann Trevelyan claims to have found a solution to whatever it is that he found problematic about his younger daughter. Whatever said solution entails, it seems to interfere with what was happening with Evie before. Random coincidence? Or causation? Primarily, the visitations from her probably dead mother stop. And from the ‘others,’ whoever the hell they are. 

“Evie, can you tell me about the ‘others’?”

“Mostly just… other kids, you know. They were my friends. Millie, and Lauren, and Graham. There weren’t that many kids my age when I was growing up.” 

Now Margo is completely and utterly confused. What’s wrong with Evie playing with other kids her age? Is this a class issue? Were they servants’ children? “Did Bann Trevelyan not want you to play with them because they were socially beneath you?”

Evie frowns, thinking. “Well… I didn’t think he’d like it, so I never told him about it, and he never caught us. Millie, I guess, was an elf. Like you. She was the kitchen maid’s daughter. And Lauren… Lauren was really sweet, and she really liked books, and would ask me to read to her because she couldn’t read, you know? And Graham… Well, Graham had been sick for a really long time. Since he was a baby. In fact, he still had a bit of a cough, even after he got better. I think it was more force of habit.”

Margo has the distinct feeling she is missing something crucial. What does the mother have to do with any of it?

Or the dog? Something about that dog is really bugging her.

“But you can’t remember the fourth one? The one who visited later?”

Evie blushes furiously again. “Oh it wasn’t like th-... I mean, I remember. I just…” She shakes her head. “I can’t say it. I’m sorry.”

Margo is about to ask another question, but a knock on the door interrupts her thought. They both jerk upright.

“Herald!” Cassandra. “Please come at once. We need you in the war room.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by Bann T's questionable parenting.
> 
> As always, thank you for your reading eyes and comments.
> 
> Next up: Libraries and Dorian


	23. Ex Libris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo encounters an ambassador, a mage, and some questionable literature.

After Evie and Cassandra depart — next to the Seeker’s ramrod straight figure, Evie’s frame looks even more diminutive than usual — Margo decides that the first order of business is to write down as much of the kid’s account as she can before she forgets some detail that will turn out to be relevant later.

Evie’s recollections fail to arrange themselves into a sequential story — the confession is fragmentary, redundant in places, with parts that seem to loop back on themselves. As if it took the young woman serious cognitive effort to piece even that much together. Although perhaps she simply never had the chance to share it with anyone before — much like official histories, these sorts of things order themselves in the telling, through repetition. Until then, it’s just fragments, a scattered sort of thing, as Baba would say.

She could probably beg Varric for writing implements, but it would be nice to actually  _ own _ something — now that she has a few coins to spend. Then again, according to Varric, the only merchant in Haven tends to overcharge.

On the other hand, he’s probably never encountered the heir apparent to Baba’s ruthless haggling.

Margo walks over to the little stall and surveys the wares. Most of Seggrit’s inventory consists of swords that look like they were only recently shovels, along with a few shields that bear a suspicious resemblance to crate lids. Forget mages. They need more merchants, too. What does this guy do, resell whatever junk he’s found in some random barrel somewhere?

“Master Seggrit? Do you sell writing implements?”

The blond man graces Margo with a condescending look. “What do you need that for? Since when is your kind literate?”

Margo bristles. Right. Gross overgeneralizations about an entire category of people based on the fact that many of them live in appalling conditions, are exploited, and probably don’t have access to education. What could possibly go wrong with that model? “Since before you lot were shitting in the snow and rubbing sticks together to make fire,” she offers pleasantly. “So, do you have them, or not?”

Perhaps not the wisest strategy, come to think of it, but well worth it, just to see the merchant’s expression of shocked outrage. He extracts a poorly bound journal and a graphite stick, drops them on the counter in front of Margo, and crosses his arms over his chest. “Ten bits.” 

“Not for that quality of product, it isn’t.” She pinches the journal. “That parchment isn’t even stabilized properly. I’ll give you five.”

She’s got eight copper coins in her pocket. At some point, she will need to consider the problem of income.

“Nine.” The merchant’s expression graduates from snooty to suspicious. Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t that. “Final offer,” he adds, but with a note of uncertainty.

“Six, and not a copper more.”

“Greedy knife-ears,” he mumbles. “Seven.” 

“Fine.”

Commodity exchange completed, Margo turns on her heels and heads straight for the temple. She could, of course, go consult with someone first — Varric, perhaps, or Solas — to help her interpret some of her findings. But it feels… wrong. Evie’s story is too raw and her own knowledge too incomplete. She can’t sort what’s important to share with the others from what’s too private and offered, however inadvertently, in confidence.

What she really needs is a library.

She gives Torquemada’s tent a wide berth. At some point, it would be very useful to learn that fade-into-the-shadows trick that the late Jan used to practice.

If the Haven chantry had a library, where would it hide? Minaeve’s Office of Unpleasant and Likely Unethical Research into Dead Things’ Remains is in here, so that might be as good a place to start as any.

Down the hall Margo notices a small group of nobles — at least, she assumes they might be nobles considering the excess of brocade — all adorned with what looks to be the Thedas edition of Viennese carnival masks. They are clustered around a woman in an aggressively frilly dress of yellow satin. Judging by the dramatic gesticulation, the nobles are in the process of venting some grievance.

The woman — striking in a vaguely Mediterranean sort of way — suddenly turns in the direction of Margo’s footsteps. Initial puzzlement is quickly traded for a studiedly charming smile. She bobs her head and gestures at Margo with a writing tablet. 

Uh-oh. 

“Agent! You must be Master Adan’s new apprentice, yes? May I have a word?” Her speech is lightly accented, a phonemic arrangement vaguely reminiscent of some Romance language, though Margo decides not to make overly hasty assumptions about any linguistic parallelism. “If you will excuse me for a moment, Messieurs?”

Margo waits her turn. 

“I apologize we did not have occasion to speak earlier! That is... an oversight on my part.” The woman offers another winsome smile. “Enchanter Minaeve’s account of your progress in alchemy is very positive.”

Well. That’s a surprise.

“I am Josephine Montilyet, Ambassador to the Inquisition. And your name is…" 

“Margo.” Margo says. “Lovely to meet you, Ambassador.”

Lady Montilyet nods. “Quite right! I beg your pardon — it is sometimes difficult to keep track of Leliana’s rotating roster of code names for her operatives. I have…” She lowers her voice, punctuating it all with a performatively furtive look. “I have a somewhat delicate request to make of you.”

Trouble. Here it comes. “Of course, how may I be of service?” Margo inquires with a neutral smile.

Lady Montilyet nods, apparently encouraged by Margo’s pleasantly polite affect. No accounting for taste.

“As you have no doubt noticed, the Inquisition is sadly lacking in some amenities. We have a number of noble guests, understandably unaccustomed to Haven’s more… austere conditions.” The Ambassador’s lips curl in a suspiciously mischievous smile. “Some of them are experiencing unfortunate difficulties. The food, I suppose, is rather heavy and lacks in variety, and the ‘accommodations’ for… ahem attending to the body’s inevitable needs are all rather basic. Leliana, of course, strives to remind our visitors that Haven is a site of religious communion — not a mountainside retreat — but I fear our guests are not as interested in the edification of the spirit through the renouncement of basic comforts as our spymaster might wish.”

Margo makes a truly epic effort not to snort. Right. Trying to ‘accommodate’ in the woods, with wolves howling in the distance is not conducive to healthy bowel movements. She lowers her voice to match the Ambassador’s. “I’m sure a mild aperient would suffice? I can deliver it to Enchanter Minaeve to distribute to those who are experiencing… umm... troubles.”

Lady Ambassador beams at her. “That would be most helpful! I knew I could count on your understanding. And your discretion." 

Margo gives her a formal little bow. It seems like proper protocol. Whipping up some laxatives for the nobles? She can certainly do that. Whatever helps the cause. “Lady Montilyet, while I have your attention. Is there a library I may be able to use?”

If the Ambassador is surprised by this request, she doesn’t show it. “Oh, most certainly! Although I am afraid that it is — like everything else — somewhat limited. The office I share with Enchanter Minaeve primarily has my own collection, which is heavy on political texts. But you will find a temple library available for public use right through the hall. Its organization is a little… idiosyncratic, but I trust you will find it adequate otherwise.”

The ambassador gestures towards a small door at the other end of the colonnade.

Margo offers her another formal bow — with a thought that a collection of political texts sounds most interesting too — and makes to leave in the direction indicated. Something catches her eye. Through the door to Minaeve’s and the ambassador’s office she spots a large wooden desk. It sports a vase with crystal grace flowers.

Aha! Could it be… But who are they for? Minaeve, or the ambassador? If she were a betting woman, she would guess the latter. And if so, good on the Bear. She wonders briefly how such courtship might be received. Social class does seem to matter in Thedas. Perhaps they’re both content with Courtly Love?

***

The library is truly a work of wonder. Not because it is well-stocked — it is not. And certainly not because it has rare, specialized literature — at first glance, and safe for a few exceptions, the books look like cheaply made editions. After Margo circumambulates the small room a few times with an increasingly bemused frown, she finally comes to a stop and forces herself to come to grips with the full horror of the situation.

The books are organized by color.

Who did this?

After two more circumambulations, she locates some promising texts. Her first find is a large alchemical tome, with  _ Property of Alchemist Taigen. Hands off, blight you! _ scrolled on the inside cover. Another volume titled  _ Ritual Scarification and Bodily Alteration among the Peoples of Thedas _ , which may or may not be relevant. A third walk around the room lends a well-worn, slightly greasy tome called  _ The Abomination and the Woman Who Loved It _ . Margo leafs through that one first. Lots of “throbbing” and “swooning,” a number of “heaving bosoms,” one or two “gasping in ecstasy,” and some implausible applications of geometry bring her to the conclusion that this will likely not explain Aunt Lucile’s moniker for Evie. Right, then. Rated “two out of five scarves fluttered” by the Rowdy Dowager, according to the back cover. She wonders what five fluttering scarves might look like. She puts that one back on the shelf. Another time, maybe.

A few more books on magic, including a glossary of Ferelden magical terminology, and Margo settles into her work.

She transcribes as much of her conversation with Evie as she can remember, writing a rudimentary timeline of the significant events, marking the pivotal points with an X. One at around age five, and one at puberty. She draws a stylized sun right above the first one. Ritual? Medical procedure? Above the second one, she writes “Bann Trevelyan’s Final Solution.”

She jots down the keywords that she might be able to search in some index. Abomination. Mabari. What else seemed significant? The names of the three children. She draws a plus sign, and adds “the other one,” followed by a question mark. She sketches a tentative kinship diagram for the figurants of the story.

She is so absorbed by her work that she registers the footsteps only vaguely and fails to lift her head at their approach. Another library patron. Nothing unusual about that.

“Oh! Someone actually using the library! You Southerners never fail to surprise me.”

Margo looks up. It’s the flashy fellow from the courtyard. Before she has time to decide how to react to this new arrival, the man turns to the shelves with an irritated expression on his face. He taps his chin with a finger in the universal gesture for “where could that book be located?”

Margo considers the intruder. He appears to be in his early or mid thirties. Everything about him suggests fastidious self-care — which brings Margo to the conclusion that this is likely a local noble. His facial hair makes him look like an escapee from an 18 th century portrait of a fashionably disreputable Spanish aristocrat. 

“Now. I don’t suppose you’ve come across anything on forbidden magics in here. Let’s see… No… No… A truly impressive collection of books on martyrs, though. Who knew there were so many?  _ The Trials and Tribulations of Sister Lucinda _ . Fascinating, no doubt.” 

Margo wants to go back to her work, but the poor chap’s expression is undergoing a fascinating metamorphosis from puzzled to befuddled to horrified. 

“Wait a moment. These books are organized by…”

“Color,” she offers grimly and tsks sympathetically at his look of shocked outrage.

“That is… astounding.” He returns to browsing the shelves with an expression somewhere between entertained and appalled, and Margo dives back into her work. 

The ethnographic monograph on ritual scarification lends nothing particularly productive: lots of potentially fascinating details on Chasind ornamental scarring and the use of red clay and charcoal to add color to the designs, but other than that, no suns. Her eyes keep returning to the very tempting alchemy tome. Maybe she can just take a quick peek, and then she will get back to her task. She stays her hand and leafs through the terminology glossary. A… A… Aha. Abominations are apparently mages whose will has been dominated by a demon — or a spirit — and who are being meat-puppeted by remote from the Fade. Minimally, this fits the definition Evie supplied — nothing in there about corpses or other unlawfully animated creatures.

Wait. Is that what she is? Is her own spirit actually in the Fade, puppeteering Maile’s body? She’s pretty sure she’s actually located inside the body, for what it’s worth, but… She narrows her eyes. Is this what Cosmic Asshole wants from her? Is he just jostling for “turf?” Can non-mages be abominated? 

Focus. Right. Why would Aunt Lucille call Evie an abomination? Was dear Auntie providing a technically accurate definition or was she just being a cantankerous hag? With a sigh, Margo relinquishes the book in favor of Master Taigen’s manual, with firm plans to borrow it indefinitely after checking with Josephine.

“Oh, what’s this? Something on abominations?” That’s the flashy fellow again. Margo looks up, startled out of her inspection of the tome’s glossary and momentarily concerned that the fellow had somehow managed to read over her shoulder. No. He is still where he was. The volume he is turning around in his hands is familiar, too.

“Something tells me that one’s probably not an accurate account,” she comments cautiously.

“No?” He leafs through the book with commendable composure. “Let us check. Hmm. Yes, perhaps a little heavy-handed in its use of ‘turgid.’ Hmm. In its defense, it does diversify. I see a few instances of ‘throbbing.’” He turns a couple of pages before reporting back, his mustache twitching with barely suppressed mirth. “Ah, we are now at `engorged,’ half a chapter into it, no less. Oh, and back to ‘turgid.’ Now,  _ that _ is gratuitous cruelty. That much 'turgidity' would become most uncomfortable after a while, unless abominations are functionally different in that regard, which I suppose might make for an interesting proposition. It would certainly explain some things…”

Margo grins. “Who’s it by?” 

“Apparently, by Varric Tethras. A companion volume to his rather popular  _ The Tale of the Champion _ , according to this codicil here.” He gives Margo a puzzled look. “Now, is this the same Varric Tethras as…” He gestures vaguely towards the door.

At this point, Margo can’t resist. She gets up and walks over to examine the purported salacious addition to Varric’s bibliography. “May I?” She squints at the title page. Aha! “No, look, the ink is different and the parchment has been buffed out right around… here. I think the author’s name was replaced. And this part looks like it was added later, but the font is a decent imitation.”

The fellow is nodding.“Yes… Yes, you are absolutely right! A counterfeit? Though rather amateurishly done. How very intriguing!” He looks down. “Excuse my manners, I suppose introductions are in order. I am Dorian of House Pavus, most recently of the Tevinter Imperium.”

Margo tenses. That’s the Tevinter mage?

Whatever is in her expression, he notices.

“Not quite what you expected? Let me guess — not sinister enough?”

Margo considers him. “Your countrymen do seem to have a reputation for it.” 

Dorian of House Pavus strikes her as someone with a pretty robust sense of humor. That doesn’t quite square with her admittedly superficial expectations. Not that Maile’s impressions were “superficial,” as it were, but apparently that sort of activity does not lend sufficient data to make any generalization about national character.

“We do! We are also known for our punctuality. We always perform our blood magic and human sacrifices fastidiously on time.” 

“No one likes a sacrifice that starts fashionably late?” Margo ventures.

Dorian gives her a dazzling smile. “Exactly! And you are?”

She’s so nonplussed by the mismatch between her preconceived notions about what a Tevinter mage should be like and the actually existing specimen that she blurts out “Margo Duvalle” before she can adapt it.

That seems to confuse the mage for a few seconds. “Not a very elven name, is it? Duvalle, you say? Is that the house which employed you? And Margo… is that the Rivaini Amargara? Or the Orlesian Margarite?”

Margo has a vague recollection that amargare means bitter in Spanish. Is Rivain to Spain what Orlais is to France? Either way, the slip will require some repair work. She will need to be more careful in the future. “The name is just a classificatory heuristic while I am in the spymaster’s employ. They tend to change when needed. As to your other question, I suppose I have a rather mixed background,” she offers evasively. 

“By your accent, I would have guessed… Nevarran?”

Interesting. Adan had identified her accent as from somewhere in Seheron.

Introductions concluded, Dorian returns the “Abomination” back to the shelf and walks over to Margo’s working desk. “An alchemist, are you?”

Margo shrugs. “An apprentice, technically. You’re the mage the Herald met in Redcliffe?”

Dorian gives her a quizzical look. “A well informed apprentice alchemist! Yes, I suppose I am that.” He pauses, seemingly considering his next move. And then he notices her notes. Her chicken scratches are probably not legible to anyone but her — they’re hardly legible to her on most days — but his gaze lands on her drawing of the little sun.

“‘The Rite of Tranquility...’” Uttered with ominous gravitas. “One of those things that the Emperium shares with you southerners, though of course the Magisters use it with somewhat greater discernment. To silence political rivals, for instance.”

Tranquility…tranquility… Why does this ring a bell? Ah! Of course! One of her first conversations with Solas, right after the debacle with the wolves. Something about damaging a spirit? No, that’s not quite it…

While she’s thinking, Dorian helps himself to Master Taigen’s manual. “Oh, an entire three pages on poisonings! How precious! Of course, had your Chantry not banned  _ The Alchemical Primer _ ... Does this work of rustic genius have an index? Let us see what this Master Taigen thought about transmogrifying metals...” He closes the book for a moment. “Have you ever wondered what might become of us — both your southern Circles and ours, rather strikingly different though they might be — should our dwarven friends one day decide to redirect their supply routes? Or — perish the thought — cut us off? Or, worse, should lyrium one day simply run out? No more lyrium — no more Tranquils! Would we survive, do you think?”

“Would you survive the inevitable resource wars, you mean?” Margo answers absentmindedly. What is the connection between lyrium and tranquility? Is tranquility a kind of alchemical procedure? “From what I heard of Tevinter, you’d have a bad time of it. No offense.”

“A politically savvy alchemist!” The sardonic tone conceals the slight note of surprise, and Margo silently berates herself for not keeping her mouth shut when silence would have been golden. 

“I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s not just in the magica potions, it’s practically in everything.” She takes the tome back and finds the Minerals section. “Here, let’s see.” Lyrium, of course, has its own dedicated chapters. She thumbs through quickly. And then, under the section titled “other applications,” her hand freezes.

“Oh. Holy shit,” Margo mutters.

Under the inscription “Rite of Tranquility,” she spots the telltale design of the little stylized sun. 

“Holy, no. Shit… Well, sometimes. No one wants to talk about that, of course. Violently severing mages from their connection to the Fade? What? I thought it would be simple! Snip, snip, all done!” He sighs. “Accidents happen.” And then he gives her another one of his quizzical looks. “Now, why would an apprentice alchemist be looking into this particular procedure? Is the Inquisition thinking of branching out?”

“Master Adan doesn’t spend much time instructing me in alchemical theory, so I’m just trying to learn as much as I can on my own.” It’s not even a particularly egregious prevarication. “Also, I don’t think I’ve ever met a Tranquil,” Margo redirects. “What are they like?”

That gives the Tevinter mage pause. “No? Well, I suppose you are not a mage. From what I understand, you southerners prefer to keep them inconspicuous. In my experience, they become… emotionless. No, that’s not quite right. They are passionless. They have no desires other than to continue an undisturbed existence. We in Tevinter tend to use them in a research capacity — they are a marvel for that. They never get bored.” He pauses. “Now, that’s quite the proposition.”

Margo feels the ground shift from under her.

But Evie isn’t emotionless. If anything she’s overly emotional.

“Can it be reversed?” she asks her new helpful informant. At least this one doesn’t try to kiss her each time she’s scratching at the threshold of some kind of insight. She’d find that delightfully ironic, all things considered, except she’s too busy contemplating the profound horror of what was potentially done to the kid.

“Not that I am aware of.” He pauses. “You do seem awfully interested in this question. May I ask why?”

Margo looks at the “Vint.” She could just outright lie. She has absolutely no reason to trust this guy — she doesn’t know him from Adam. But… He seems to speak his mind, and this endears him to Margo quite a bit. People who don’t talk in cryptic half-truths. Why aren’t there more of them?

“Why are you here, Lord Pavus?” she asks instead. “Really. What brought you all the way to Redcliffe, and from Redcliffe all the way to Haven?”

He gives her a speculative look, and Margo has the distinct impression that’s he’s deliberating at a fork in the road. “Why my own two feet, of course! And an unwashed sort of fellow with a horse and a buggy.”

Margo narrows her eyes at him.

“Oh, very well. If you must insist. Just don’t give me that squint again, it’s terrifying. It was my mentor. Gereon Alexius. Brilliant mage, path breaking researcher, best mentor someone like me could have wished for, and much better than I deserved.” 

Margo has the distinct feeling that there is another shoe suspended somewhere, and that it is about to drop.

“Until, that is, he decided to experiment with dangerous, highly unstable magic and, I suspect, used it to annex the Redcliffe mages right from under the nose of your illustrious organization.”

Margo frowns. Does this mean that the mages Evie was meant to negotiate with are now off the chess board? She isn’t sure whether that’s a good, or a bad thing, all things considered.

Then she returns to the problem at hand. Someone else is good at redirecting, as it appears. “But that still doesn’t exactly explain why you’re  _ here. _ ” 

The mage shifts in place with a nervous, impatient tension to his movements that seems born out of some profound, deep-seated contradiction. But it isn’t an unfamiliar one. And if she were to guess, she’d identify it as the ambivalent, uncertain concern for one’s intellectual mentor. Perhaps this Gereon Alexius was to Dorian what her PhD advisor was to her. The man who filled the hole in her kinship diagram left by her father’s death. The person who molded her intellectual trajectory, who shaped her thoughts over years of careful, considerate, though sometimes frustrating cultivation. And who, in the end, made her at least partially the woman she is. She can certainly see how the feeling that accompanies such a relationship would inspire someone to take action.

“I am here because I want to help. Is that so hard to imagine?”

Apparently being a Tevinter mage in Ferelden puts one on the defensive. She doesn’t bite. In the absence of an argument from her, a fraction of the tension seems to drain out of him.

“I am afraid Alexius has lost his way. I had hoped the Inquisition would help me stop him from doing more damage — to others, and to himself. Surely your organization can see the value in such an alliance.”

Margo nods.

“I can. But it’s not up to me. I’m just a… lackey.”

He gives her a skeptical look. “Dangerous work, that. But somehow I doubt that’s entirely true. In any case, I should return to Redcliffe soon. Not all of your magically inclined countrymen are pleased with Alexius’s arrangement with the Grand Enchanter, by the way. Something to consider.” 

With that, he gives her a slightly theatrical bow and makes for the exit.

“It was nice to meet you, Lord Pavus,” Margo calls after him.

“Of course it was! I am witty and charming. A pleasant change, I’m sure.”

Margo chuckles. Well, what do you know. She actually does like the Vint. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by my endless amusement at the idea that someone in Thedas might have been writing badly written smutty fanfiction of the Tale of the Champion and trying to pass it for an original.
> 
> Next up: Spy games


	24. Socratic Method

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo fails to persuade Leliana, spars with a Qunari operative, and recruits Varric.

One tome on dog domestication later, and Margo decides that the Mabari, while a fascinating species, gets her absolutely nowhere in terms of understanding Evie’s story. She still has no idea at all why the damn dog was important, except for the nagging feeling that she is missing something crucial and likely utterly self-evident. Something that had led to Aunt Lucille’s comment about needing to train Evie?

The most plausible conclusion is that Evie must have shown some capacity for magic — or, perhaps, manifested _something_ her family interpreted as such. It fits, however oddly — Aunt Lucille’s comment about training Evie elsewhere, the odd sunburst brand, Bann Trevelyan’s protracted efforts to medicate his child.

The dog, however, doesn’t fit. Is there some kind of special canine magic that Evie’s family would have found especially alarming?

Margo gathers the alchemy manual she wants to appropriate before heading out of the room, with the firm intention to ask Lady Montilyet for permission first. Rogue or not, you don’t steal books from a library.

The ambassador is not in her office, but Minaeve is, so Margo asks the elven researcher instead.

“No one else has taken much of an interest,” the enchanter replies tersely to Margo’s stumbling and somewhat circuitous request. “Check with Adan if he wants it, but otherwise, I see no reason why you would not be able to borrow it.”

Book acquired, Margo heads out of the chantry, her thoughts heavy with apprehension.

There is really no clean ethical solution to this. Can you betray one person’s confidence for the benefit of others? The entire purpose behind finding more about Evie’s past pivots around the pragmatics of the luck siphoning vortex. And this, in turn, hinges on keeping as many of her friends — and the Inquisition’s assets — safe.

But if she brings her suspicions to light, what will be done to the kid? The locals aren’t exactly enthusiastic about the concept of untrained mages, if that is indeed what Evie is. From what she understands, a Rite of Tranquility would have been performed in a Circle of Magi, under strict supervision. How typical is it for one to be undertaken “at home” — again, if this is indeed what befell the poor kid.

Besides, nothing so far connects the luck siphon to what may or may not be a Tranquility scar. She is missing something.

Margo is so absorbed by the unsolvable ethics of the Gordian knot that she fails to execute her previously successful evasive maneuver, and she stumbles right upon Torquemada’s tent. In addition to Torquemada in the flesh, the tent also contains Evie, who has apparently extricated herself from whatever planning the Seeker had recruited her for. A tall fellow in the heinous lettuce-green ensemble worn by the spymaster’s pawns looms in the shadows.

The trio is in the middle of a hushed but tense conversation.

“There are so many questions surrounding Farrier’s death. Did Butler think we wouldn’t notice?”

Apparently, someone had the audacity to mess with the spymaster, and it might be useful to figure out what the exact consequences of such a course of action might be. Nothing good, no doubt. Margo inches closer to the tent flap, with the bleak certainty that trying to eavesdrop on Torquemada is about as wise (and as likely to end in success) as trying to cross the Pacific ocean in a washbasin.

“He’s killed Farrier, one of my best agents,” the redhead continues. “And knows where the others are.” After a pregnant pause — the kind that’s about to hatch a xenomorph — the spymaster shakes her head. “You know what must be done. Make it clean.”

Margo looks at Evie. It’s pretty obvious what Torquemada just ordered. And whoever Butler is — and however much he has screwed the pooch — this, to Margo, feels like a pivotal moment. It isn’t even about Butler, strictly speaking. It’s about Leliana herself. If there is a seedling of humanity left inside Comrade Nightingale’s Kevlar-plated outer shell, it certainly could use some sunlight and warmth right about now, before it dies a quiet, forgotten and entirely inglorious death. Someone has to stop her from snowballing down the slippery slope of justified but casual brutality.

Evie just stares at her feet, fiddling with the edge of her winter coat — and says nothing. And for the first time, the feelings of protective warmth and concern that the young woman normally evokes are substituted with a profound, irritated disappointment. Margo stamps out the emotion, conjuring the image of the sun scar — a silver ghost on the girl’s forehead, glimpsed by accident, and now carefully concealed behind a layer of makeup and bangs.

Evie didn’t choose this. Which, in turn, begs the question of just how many things she didn’t choose in general.

The annoyance vanishes under a pile of shame.

Still. Maybe Evie just needs someone to amplify her a bit, to allow her the space to speak. Margo quickly scans the girl’s body language. A tense rigidity seems to have settled into the young woman’s stance, and the crease between her brows is especially pronounced. Like that student in class who clearly wants to speak up but hasn’t found her voice yet.

“Spymaster?” Shit. This is probably going to backfire in some spectacular way, but she won’t be able to sleep at night if she doesn’t at least try. Her sleeping habits are already less than optimal — considering she has to resort to assisted sleeping via elven apostate. More guilt over opportunities lost won’t improve the situation.

“Ah, agent. Kind of you to join us. Do you have something to contribute?”

Evie turns around, and gives Margo a scared — but hopeful — look.

“Is murdering Butler in some dark alley truly the wisest course of action?”

Oh dear Unspecified and Vilely Sardonic Deity, she’s going to regret opening her mouth, isn’t she?

Comrade Nightingale’s expression has adopted its usual corvid and vaguely carnivorous cast. “And what would you have me do, agent? Let Butler betray more of my people? Curious how your ethics dictate restraint when those who would do us harm are concerned — why is that, I wonder?”

Before Margo can respond, they are both startled by the sound of a quiet voice. It’s timid and awfully embarrassed at taking up conversational space. But there’s something there. A kind of underlying depth, perhaps. Whatever Evie might be, Margo doesn’t think she’s passionless. Certainly not like anything Dorian described when he mentioned Tranquils. “I… I don’t mean to interrupt. But I think Margo might be right. Sister Nightingale, you shouldn’t just kill Butler. Not like that. Shouldn’t he have the chance to explain himself?”

Leliana turns to the source of this revolutionary proposal. “Herald?” The look of surprise sits awkwardly on the spymaster’s features. And then the expression reverts back to the usual terrifyingly affable mask, all sharp steel and dark things. “Now is truly not the time for maudlin ideals.”

Margo notes Evie’s hands balling up into fists at her sides. “I… I didn’t…” The kid clears her throat, but when she speaks, there is a small steely note beneath the fumbling. “I didn’t realize ideals kept to a strict schedule.” The voice is so quiet it’s barely audible. “Are they off-duty? Because if so, then maybe I could come back when they’re back at their post.”

Margo’s eyes widen. Is the kid actually taking the piss? She can’t tell with any certainty: Evie looks naively earnest — not, in any way, sarcastic or wry — if you ignore the white knuckles. Margo is not the only one who is nonplused. The spymaster measures Evie with a guarded look, momentarily startled out of some habitual state of numb implacability. And, for a second, it seems that Torquemada might be vaccilating.

The spymaster’s frown deepens. “Lady Trevelyan. _Herald_. I am certain that it has not escaped your attention that the Inquisition has achieved remarkably little during the admittedly brief history of its reformation. The mages and Templars situation stays unresolved. Refugees still suffer. Innocents suffer. We have barely enough influence to secure basic necessities, let alone the social clout to convince anyone to ally with us or to offer us so much as logistical support. And this at a time when an alliance is desperately needed.” Leliana crosses her arms. “Each day we fail to secure allies is another day the Breach remains. So, no. This is not a time for ideals. It is a time for difficult decisions. And if Andraste’s Chosen is unwilling to make them, then someone must do so in her stead.” All delivered with a layer of steel thick as an arm, but underneath it, Margo intuits another shape. Some kind of ancient and unresolvable ache, like the phantom pains of an old heartbreak.

Margo watches Evie deflate, as if all the air is sucked out of her along with the courage it took to confront the spymaster. She tries to conjure an argument that would allow Evie to find her footing again, or that might at least disrupt Leliana’s course on vengeful efficiency. Some interjection that would not simply be dismissed on account of a dubiously trustworthy petitioner. She draws a breath. “Spymaster, surely there are politically preferable alternatives to back-alley murders. A trial, perhaps?”

Leliana, to Margo’s surprise, doesn’t try to incinerate her with her gaze — a pleasant contrast to her habitual modus operandi. Instead, she shakes her head, that old sadness still lingering at the corners of her eyes. “I wish there were, agent.” She considers Margo with something that could almost pass for a human expression. “You are working to correct your mistakes, are you not? Perhaps I was much like you once — eager to do what it took yet intent on keeping my ideals. This achieved little. One cannot walk two roads at once.” She lets out a short sigh. “The Maker cares not at all about our ethical equivocations. If He did, surely the Divine would still be alive. And Andraste, his favorite, the one He held above all others, would have not have met her end on the pyre.”

At the mention of the Maker, Evie suddenly straightens. “Spymaster Leliana…” Evie’s hands are clasped in front of her in a strange imitation of prayer. “You’re right. I really don’t know much. And I know you all think me naïve and inept. But even _I_ know you shouldn’t expect a pat on the head from the Maker every time you don’t act like a complete...umm... Asshat.”

For a brief moment, Leliana’s expression registers utter shock, as if Evie had slapped her. And then her eyes narrow and Margo realizes with a sinking feeling that this was the wrong thing to say. Maybe at a different time in the spymaster’s life, this argument would have gotten through her shields. But not anymore.

“Do not presume to school me in matters of faith, child. The Maker has taken everything from me. Yet, that does not seem to satisfy.” Frost creeps through the cracks in the dulcet cadence of bardic affectation. “When you lose everyone and everything you hold dear to the vagaries of His ineffable will, then we can have this conversation again. For now, you must excuse me. I have work to do.”

With that, they are dismissed.

They walk out together.

“That was brave of you. And the right thing to do,” Margo states firmly. Even if it didn’t get the desired result, it took plenty of courage to stand up to Torquemada. Certainly more than she’d managed to conjure up in her own conversations.

Evie’s face, tight and pale, remains set in an expression of thoughtful focus. She doesn’t say anything for a long time, and Margo allows for the silence to settle.

“I think the Spymaster can’t hear the Maker anymore,” the young woman remarks quietly, as if to no one in particular.

Margo cuts the girl a quick glance. “Can _you_ hear the Maker, kiddo?”

Evie shrugs. “No. But I think I understand why Sister Leliana is so sad.” She pauses, a strange, forlorn look on her features. “I wish He’d still talk to me too.”

***

Evie, still oddly subdued, excuses herself quickly and walks back towards her hut. Margo is left standing in the street. The weather is turning stormy once again. Heavy grey clouds laden with unshed snow hang so low they feel like a lid over the mountain landscape. Even the Breach is nothing but a faint glow tinting the leaden skies a sickly green.

She walks over to the training grounds, intent on keeping her sparring date with the Ben Hassrath. She has the distinct suspicion that any avoidance tactic will result in more double-edged questioning, but without the benefit of keeping up appearances. How much of an interrogation can he really mount while they’re whacking at each other remains to be seen.

The Iron Bull is by his tent. When he spots her, he gives Margo a brief nod. She walks over. Might as well bite the bullet — before it bites right back.

“Thought you wouldn’t show,” he offers with a lazily speculative undercurrent to his tone, which Margo decides she doesn’t like one bit.

“And miss the pleasure of having your smack me upside the head some more? Not a chance.”

Her quip is met with a rumbling chuckle, but his good eye remains serious. “So. You wanna spar, then? Or you have other things in mind?”

She narrows her eyes. Again with the come-on that isn’t one. What is he playing at? They don’t have much of an audience this time — she can spot Krem talking to Master Harritt, but otherwise, none of the Charges are in sight.

She’s not cut out for spy games. Surviving this place already feels like trying to juggle too many balls — and maybe a couple of chainsaws to boot — and when it comes to juggling large, sharp, lethal objects, probability is not on your side.

“What’s this about, Bull? Do you have a problem with me?”

He shrugs. “Depends. I’ve made some inquiries about you. Nothing personal, you understand — that’s just how we roll. Guess you could say I got curious about your story. Thought a private conversation might suit your better than a public one.”

Margo cocks her head. “Sure, I’m happy to talk. But what’s with the propositioning?"

The Iron Bull gives her another one-shouldered shrug. “Figured I’d kill two birds with one stone. If you’re who your story suggests, you’d probably try to use sex to distract me. Not that it’d work —” another somewhat humorless chuckle “— but I don’t mind you giving it a shot. Then again, if you’re not — which is what I’m leaning towards — I thought I’d offer you a cover for why you and I are talking. Don’t think your spymaster’s ruled out the possibility that you’re Viddathari.” He pauses, just long enough to see whether the word provokes a reaction, but whatever he was expecting, it probably wasn’t Margo’s rather blank stare. The Qunari shrugs, the very picture of casualness. “The way this Inquisition’s run… It needs to be centralized to work, but they don’t have the habit of the system. Takes time to set up, get folks used to the idea. Right now, it’s too many people trying to lead while pretending they’re not in charge. Still, Leliana’s not crazy about relevant information passing her by, but if she assumes you’re just scratching an itch, she might think that’s all it is.” He pauses. “She won’t. But she could.”

Whatever the Viddathari are, they must have something to do with Torquemada’s original suspicion about the possibility of Maile’s spying for the Qun. Margo stifles a sigh. Whoever is in charge of shoving errant souls into bodies they’re not meant to occupy really has a vile sense of humor. Couldn’t she have gotten herself stuck in some dusty, not particular adventurous academic type somewhere? Surely, Thedas must have those too. “You know, Bull, I already have a miserable reputation. I’d rather not make it worse.”

Another noncommittal shrug. “Up to you. You and I are going to have a chat, though. And then we’ll talk about that luck thing you mentioned.”

How many times has he fought alongside Evie? Margo wasn’t under the impression that the kid leaned heavily on The Iron Bull in terms of who she chose to deploy. But since Cassandra was with them in the Mire, then that would have left Evie with either Blackwall or Iron Bull or both for the heavy front-liners. The Ben Hassrath might be many things — but unobservant isn’t one of them. It wouldn’t have taken him long to see that there was a pattern.

“We’ll talk,” Margo nods. “Can we train for now?”

He lets the pause stretch to the edge of awkwardness before inclining his head in acquiescence. “Suit yourself.”

They do train for about forty minutes, and the Qunari pulls no punches. Eventually, the no-holds-barred nature of the combat forces Margo into a kind of meditative mindlessness, and from there, she allows her body do take over and go through the motions. Which it does, and she even manages to plant the giant bastard in the snow a couple of times, using his own mass and momentum against him.

She steps away from the training grounds sore, sweaty, exhausted, and likely mottled with a stunning collection of bruises — none of them on visible skin.

Strangely enough, The Iron Bull seems a lot less hostile after their session. “Some operatives fold under pressure,” he remarks affably. “You let me know when you’re ready to have that chat, Blondie.” And with that, he turns around and heads back towards his tent.

Margo rubs her face with both hands. She tries to make sense of his actions, but the whole experience just confounds her further. Was this a test? Or, more accurately, was this some perverse interpretation of the Socratic method taken to the next level, where not only do you not know the hypothetical answers, but you aren’t even sure what the question was.

Or whether there was a question.

***

She heads for the baths, hoping to catch the end of the women’s shift. The bored looking elf at the entrance takes one look at Margo, winces, and slips her a towel and a lump of soap without charging.

She makes quick work of washing herself and her underclothes. They’re still a little damp when she leaves, which, in the frigid weather, does not make for the most pleasant experience, but at least she’s no longer quite so stinky.

The apothecary is next. Margo is perfectly well aware that she is in a holding pattern, procrastinating what really needs to be done, but she decides to buy herself one more hour with making the laxatives, as per the ambassador’s request.

Adan, in the midsts of working on something called “essence of lightning,” according to the open formulary on his desk, doesn’t look up when she enters. In fact, he doesn’t look up at all — absorbed by the task of peering at something that looks suspiciously like mercury swishing at the bottom of a glass vial. “Look what the deepstalker dragged in,” he comments dryly.

Margo asks whether he wants help, but he just shakes his head before waving her off. “You need to pass your Journeyman examination to work with this stuff. If we’re all still alive in a month, we can talk about it.”

Margo hopes that whatever the Journeyman exam involves, it doesn’t require a draught that would add another cosmic asshole to her collection. She’d rather drink outright poison.

She processes the herbs — Auntie’s Compendium gives a simple enough recipe for a mild laxative that involves spindleweed, a mucilaginous plant that puts her in mind of the _Cynoglossum_ genus. She prudently dons gloves, in case it is as toxic as its terran morphological equivalent. The directions to treat it are simple enough: peel the roots, crush them into a sticky, snotty paste, add elfroot, and roll into pills with molasses or honey.

Task completed, she sets the pills to solidify on a baking tray. Streamlining some of the heavily used tonics into pill form would be relatively easy, and it would save quite a bit of space for when the troops are in the field — the elfroot healing potion might not work, she decides, since a decoction does absorb quicker, but for the restorative draught with warrant some experimentation. Pop a pill before battle, and off you go.

Adan takes a break from his activities to hand her a little purse full of coppers. “It’s not much,” he adds defensively. “But I’m not about to start withholding your pay just because the Inquisition can’t get its budget straight.”

Margo tucks the purse into her coat with a grateful smile. Income problem solved. For now.

Outside, the light wanes — part gathering blizzard, and part simply the fact that the day has managed to slip through her fingers. At this point, more procrastination is simply untenable. The longer she puts off what needs to be done, the larger the task will grow, until it feels impossible to tackle.

Adan lets her go without fuss, releasing her into the snowy gloom with another dismissive wave. For once, procrastination bore fruit, and Margo can now sense the contours of a decision. She cannot solve the Evie problem alone — that much is evident — but whatever can be shared of the kid’s story should not be disseminated widely. Not without more evidence, in any case. And so, it makes sense to start with those with whom it all began.

Since the prospects of being utilized as one of those unfortunate log dummies Cassandra likes to abuse does not appeal, Margo tracks down Varric first, hoping to outsource the task of recruiting the Seeker to him. The dwarf looks like he would make for a sturdy lightning rod to ground Cassandra Pentaghast’s potential ire.

The Inquisition’s local best selling author is, predictably enough, in the tavern, though Margo is vaguely surprised to find him sitting alone at a back table, scribbling something down in a journal. Probably working on his next book, she decides.

The tavern is hot and humid, the rough floor planks spotted with murky puddles of melting snow. The air is thick with the smells of cabbage, baked starch, and frying oil. It is still too early for the evening meal, and the crowds of soldiers and other regulars have yet to file in.

Margo orders two half-pints from Flissa and waves one of the glasses at Varric in lieu of a request for a seat.

“Oh-ho, Prickly! You’ve finally decided to pay up?” He gestures at the bench across from him.

Once she is settled, they clink their slightly foggy glasses together. “Varric, I think I need to call a meeting. I was hoping you’d help.”

The dwarf’s expression remains placid and vaguely amused, safe for a mild tightening to his jaw and a slight squint to his coppery eyes. He considers her carefully over his ale. “If this is what I think it is, I take it you’d rather keep it small.”

Margo nods. “Would you ask Cassandra?”

Varric winces, managing to look simultaneously dubious and put upon.

“Please?” She decides against playing cute — her physique doesn’t exactly lend itself to conjuring that particular affect. And, besides, she’s not about to insult Varric’s intelligence. Best just fess up. “I find the The Seeker…” Margo fishes for an appropriate epithet. “A bit alarming.”

Varric chortles grimly. “That, Prickly, is like calling the Arishok ‘unaccommodating.’ But fine, I’ll fall on my dagger — but you owe me an ale.” His eyes glint in the torchlight. “And a story. Whatever _did_ happen to you at the Sword Coast? Really?”

Margo smiles blandly. “Ale it is. And I’ll go get Solas. Let’s start from there.”

Varric inclines his head. His speculative squint morphs from acquisitive to teasing. He purses his lips. “And how much time should I give you and Chuckles before I go and fetch the Seeker?”

Margo offers him her best rendition of the Evil Eye. If it works on the Vint… “Maybe I should be asking you the same thing, hmm?”

That earns her a surprised if somewhat vexed little _hmpf_. “You know, Prickly, it is possible for two people to just dislike each other without it being code for something else.”

At this point, it is Margo’s turn to smirk. What’s good for the goose… “For what it’s worth, you two would make a formidable pair.”

Varric crosses his arms over the impressive display of chest hair. “I like my romantic liaisons without a side of interrogation and possible torture, thank you very much.” He takes a sip of beer, clearly satisfied with his rhetorical countermove.

Margo’s teasing smirk turns a little wicked. “Just agree over a ‘safe word’ first. I bet your editor would say this has ‘narrative potential’."

Varric almost chokes on his beer. “You’re _actually_ trouble, Prickly.”

When Margo notices a faint dusting of color across the dwarf’s cheekbones, she starts chortling in honest. Turnabout is fair play.

“Jests aside,” Varric states with a pointed look. “We have bigger problems.”

That, at least, she can’t argue with. They finish their ales and agree to reconvene right after the evening chant.

“Where do you want to meet? Should be somewhere away from prying eyes. And ears. Preferably on neutral territory,” Varric comments, all business.

Margo thinks for a few seconds. “Let’s meet in Master Taigen’s old hut. Do you know where it is? The only person who ever uses it is Adan. And I think he prefers to avoid it if he can.”

Varric nods his agreement. Margo gets up to leave.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Varric calls after her, and she casts him a quick look over her shoulder. There’s another one with a fatalistic streak, judging by his expression.

“It’s… strange,” she finally offers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by Margo and Evie failing their charisma roll.
> 
> Next up: Conspiracy theorists


	25. Unremarkable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo shares her research with the team

Margo tries Solas’s cottage first in the dim hope that the universe might find itself in a merciful mood and provide her with a quick and easy answer, for once. She is entirely unsurprised when it does no such thing — the door remains closed and bolted, the windows dark against the remnants of the fading afternoon light.

Margo pulls her hood over her hair against the rapidly intensifying frost. The snowstorm is gathering quietly, but she can smell the shift in the air, like the breath of some ancient glacier — damp, bone-chilled, and mineral under the scent of snow. The little village is bracing itself in anticipation. Shutters are pulled tight from the inside and plumes of smoke rise over the rooftops from freshly reignited hearths. As she walks down the hill, she spots a few of the locals swinging axes to chop firewood. 

She muses, in passing, over Haven’s demographics. What was this place before it became the Inquisition’s headquarters? Josephine had mentioned that it used to be a pilgrimage site. Most of the cabins are relatively simple, but they are also unusually standardized. Down to the portraits decorating the walls, which are oddly repetitive, as if commissioned in batches from some painters’ guild. 

Is Haven some kind of tourist infrastructure? The architecture doesn’t look like it was intended for winter — perhaps most of the pilgrims were seasonal. It invites questions about Haven’s non-military population. Did the Inquisition inherit Haven’s hosteling staff when it commandeered the village? It would certainly explain the Chantry's ire, in addition to the accusations of heresy: no one likes to lose a strategic resource and the revenue it might generate.

Margo forces herself to refocus on the task at hand: namely, finding Solas. This is not the time to go off on tangents about local tourist economies. She walks through the village, spiraling out in widening circles, vaguely hoping that the elf isn’t asleep somewhere completely unreasonable. Exploring whatever historical remainders — or reminders — the Fade absorbed and digested is all well and good, but perhaps best undertaken as a summer activity. If he is, indeed, asleep in some random hole, Margo finds herself hoping that it provides adequate shelter from the storm. 

She finds them by the trebuchets. An unlikely pair: Solas, hands clasped behind his back, his face tilted upward, surveys the massive structure. A few paces away, Blackwall is crouching next to some mechanism at the base of the monstrous war machine. The Warden is prodding at a wooden gear with an expression of distracted disapproval. Margo hesitates for a second before walking over to them.

“Agent?” At the creaking of her footsteps on the snow, the Bear lifts his head and clears his throat, perhaps a tad unsure whether to address her by her name or her title. “Margo,” he adds for good measure. 

“Blackwall. Solas. Terrifying siege weapon.” She offers a nod in salute.

Blackwall’s eyes crinkle at the corners with an invisible smile, and then he pats the contraption like one might a reliable but aging draft horse. “Not a bad one, all things considered. If Cullen could get his oafs to oil it properly, it might even work. And check that the ropes aren’t fraying — this climate does a number on the fibers.”

Margo glances at Solas — long enough to catch the barest glimmer of a smile and the hint of a bow. “Are you well rested, lethallan?” he asks quietly.

She returns his slight bow. “Very much so.” Their gazes snag once again with that now all too familiar jolt of vertigo in the pit of her stomach — apparently, there’s no helping it — before Margo forcibly refocuses on the rock-tossing apparatus. “Thank you,” she adds under her breath.

Blackwall doesn’t seem to pay much attention to whatever subtext underlies her exchange with the mage — he is still absorbed by the trebuchet, except that now his forehead creases with concern. His gaze drifts over the palisade, sweeping over the darkening flank of the next mountain range. “On their own, they’re fine machines. But that doesn’t change the fact that there’s not enough of them.”

“Blackwall was just explaining to me that Haven, as it stands, is indefensible,” Solas offers conversationally.

Blackwall casts the elf an uneasy glance. “I didn’t say  _ indefensible. _ I said  _ undefendable _ . You’re twisting it around, Solas.”

“I merely extrapolated,” Solas comments with studied blandness. “Your exact words, as I recall, were ‘Maker’s balls, if this Inquisition thinks it can withstand an assault with three rotting rock-hurlers and this blighted goat fence they call a stockade, we’re in deeper…’” Solas’s lips purse in a smothered smile “... shall I continue?”

“I’d really rather you didn’t.” Blackwall clears his throat with a slightly guilty look in Margo’s direction, before breaking into a low chuckle. “The gist of it s’all there, I'll give you that .” 

Margo looks between the two men. “Are we important enough for that to be an issue?” Because, of course, you only need defenses if someone cares enough to attack you.

“The Inquisition isn’t just an army, agent.” Blackwall pauses, mulling over whatever comes next. “In fact, it really isn’t much of an army at all. Right now, it’s mostly a symbol — and a symbol without swords behind it is an open invitation for trouble.” Whatever station his train of thoughts rolled into leads him to grimace. “Wars have been waged over less.”

Margo nods in understanding. Still. Some symbols have more potency than others. So far, she is not at all convinced that the Inquisition has captured the imagination of that many people. Sure, the Chantry is none too pleased about the potential competition, but what are the chances that they might mount a crusade to smite the heretics?  “Military campaigns are expensive projects,” she offers cautiously. 

Solas nods. “And that may be defense enough for now. However, hoping that the reasonable voice of avarice will deter the more fanatically inclined at perpetuity is a risky calculation, lethallan.”

“Well. Not much we can do about it at the moment.” The Warden straightens. “I have a hankering for a drink. You two care to join me?” He turns to Margo. “As I recall, I promised you a round back in the Mire, demons take that Maker-forsaken dunghole — though I guess they did that already.” He glances at the elf. “Care for a rematch, Solas? No idea how you beat me the other night, but I wouldn’t mind winning my dignity back.”

At Margo’s puzzled look, Blackwall shakes his head in disgust. “Taught Solas diamondback before we left for the bog. He turned around and beat me at it. Lost everything. Had to walk back to my quarters with only a bucket for my bits.”

Margo cuts a surprised look at the elf. Solas remains entirely unrepentant — and not a little smug. She stifles a fit of rather undignified cackles.

“I am happy to part with your belongings, Warden Blackwall. I have little use for a full set of heavy armor.” Solas seems to be suppressing a grin, which, with nowhere else to go, percolates to his eyes. “I would gladly take you up on your offer of a rematch at a later date. Provided you have anything left to wager.”

Margo chortles quietly, but then the amusement is replaced by a pang of wistfulness. Why aren’t there more of these moments – glimpses of laughter and levity stolen from the grinding weight of catastrophe? 

At the sound of the bell, they turn their heads synchronically towards the temple. The first notes of the evening chant carry faintly over Haven, strands of melody intertwining with the whistling wind.

“Solas, may I have a moment of your time?” She pauses, trying to phrase the statement in a way that won’t draw the Bear’s interest. “I need a mage’s advice regarding an alchemical procedure.”

Solas catches her gaze, his own eyes, a foggy grey in the dim glow of the remains of the day, gleam with an unuttered inquiry. And then he inclines his head. “Of course, lethallan.”

The three of them walk together towards the center of the village. Before bidding them farewell, Blackwall hesitates, shifting on his feet with obvious discomfort. “Eh... Margo. I’ve meant to thank you. For the…” He clears his throat again. ”For the herbalism advice the other day.”

Margo frowns briefly before recalling the vase of crystal grace flowers on the ambassador’s desk. “Did it work as intended?” she asks.

Blackwall kicks the snow with the tip of an armored boot. “We’ll… ahem. We’ll see, I suppose.”

She nods. “Sometimes it takes more than one application.” She’s sorely tempted to wink at him, but she resists the compulsion, not wanting to embarrass the poor man more than he already is. “Keep at it.”

“I… Ahm.” He hesitates, on the verge of some other question. The storm’s first snowflakes flutter around them, briefly salting the warden’s dark hair before melting away. Blackwall casts a hostile glance at the heavens, shakes his head in dismissal, and walks off towards the tavern with a parting “Right, then.” Margo watches him retreat, his heavy footsteps muffled in the fresh snow. 

She catches Solas’s quizzical gaze on her.  “All is well with Warden Blackwall?” he inquires, his tone carefully neutral. 

It’s not her secret to share, of course, but there is that slight hitch to the elf’s voice, a practically imperceptible shift in timbre, though one Margo is beginning to recognize. She doesn’t think that there are any proprietary claims between them — a couple of kisses does not a relationship make — but she knows vulnerability, however slight, when she hears it. And she is not one to exploit it just for the sake of a power kick. 

She brushes her knuckles against the back of his hand, a brief gesture of assurance. “He is a good man. I hope his chosen pursuits won’t lead him to too much heartache.” 

Solas peers at her before nodding his understanding. “An applicable wish for more than just our warden, I suppose,” he offers quietly.

His cool fingers twine around hers briefly, and then he lets go and clasps his hands behind his back once again. The warm and fuzzies rear their head, somewhat interrogatively, and Margo lets them know in no uncertain terms that now is really not the time. She stuffs her hands into her pockets, for lack of a better use for them. “Solas, I’ve called a meeting with Varric and Cassandra. Varric should be off recruiting the seeker, and I was in charge of fetching you.”

His expression turns from melancholy to sharply attentive. “You have discovered something, da’nas?”

She nods.

“And the nature of your discovery has prompted you to gather a small circle of co-conspirators.” 

It isn’t a question, but she nods again. “We meet at Master Taigen’s hut after the evening chant. I think we should walk separately, however.”

It is the elf’s turn to nod. “Agreed. Though please resist the urge to get eaten by wolves along the way.”

***

In Margo’s estimation, the evening prayer runs for about half an hour, so she heads back towards the apothecary, intent on gathering her notes and her books. Adan is absent, as per usual, though he left a sordid mess in his wake. She stuffs the journal into her knapsack — along with the treatise on dogs, and Master Taigen's alchemy manual. 

She checks on the pills. They have solidified nicely, so she collects them into one of the small woven satchels Adan keeps in a crate under the workstation. She writes out the label carefully, trying to ignore the feather’s awful squeaking. “For Lady Ambassador.” She considers what else to write — something euphemistic would probably be more suitable. Josephine did mention discretion. “To ease the process.” She leaves the parcel in the courier box by the door.

Tasks completed, Margo heads out and makes her way towards the old alchemist’s hut, hood pulled low against the twirling flurries.

She meets no wolves this time.

A faint, flickering light from the window casts an unsteady tawny square on the snow. A thin plume of grey smoke rises above the chimney, its contours just one shade lighter than the graphite gray of the sky.

Margo pushes the door open after tapping the snow off her boots. 

As is turns out, she is the last one to arrive. Varric and Cassandra are sitting at a small table. Judging by their expressions, they have been bickering the entire time. Solas is leaning against a bookshelf and leafing through a tome on Chasind plant lore.

Varric smoothes out his scowl in favor of a sardonic smirk. “Fashionably late, Prickly.”

“My apologies,” Margo pulls her hood down and retrieves a crate from the corner to sit on. Solas returns the book back to its shelf and glides to stand against the wall next to Varric. 

“I am not sure how I feel about secret meetings in abandoned houses, agent, but Varric was... very insistent.” There is an edge to Cassandra’s voice, some intractable emotion between exasperation and grudging curiosity.

Margo extracts her journal from her knapsack. She plops it down on the table, adding the alchemy manual for reference. This particular audience will be as friendly as it gets — which isn’t saying much. Both Solas and Varric might be willing to listen, at least. Cassandra, on the other hand, may prove a bit of a challenge. She will have to cater her message to her, then.

Before she can proceed, Varric interjects. “You can skip the prologue, Prickly. I’ve already debriefed the seeker about our theory on the whole luck bending mess. I figured it’d come across better from someone who can actually spin a story.”

Margo meets Cassandra’s gaze. “Does Varric’s explanation accord with your own experience, Seeker Pentaghast?”

Cassandra pauses before answering, and then, reluctantly, she nods. “Impossible as it seems, yes. There is moderate comfort in knowing that I have not been imagining things.”

“So what’d you find, Prickly. Don’t keep us in the dark.”

“I should preface this by saying I don’t know what this means. Or how to put it all together.” Margo flips through the alchemy tome until she locates the lyrium section, and then she finds the page with the Rite of Tranquility. She lets the book fall open, flipping it towards her companions. She takes a deep breath, exhales, and taps the image with her index finger. “Evie has a similar mark on her forehead.”

Varric’s eyes widen to the size of copper coins. Solas inhales sharply. Cassandra outright gasps.

“It cannot be,” the seeker shakes her head with such vehemence Margo wonders whether she underestimated her audience's potential reticence. She looks to Varric for support, and not finding it on the dwarf’s suddenly grim features, turns to the elf. Cassandra crosses her arms over her chest with a mulish cast to her jaw. “I have met many Tranquils. I am certain the Herald cannot be one.”

“All right. Let’s all keep our heads and not jump to hasty conclusions.” Varric, with the habitual conciliatory gesture, leans back in his chair. “Start from the beginning, Prickly.”

And so, she does. With references to her scribbled notes and the timeline she managed to compose, Margo retells what she was able to piece together of Evie’s story. It takes more time than she thought it would, in part because she keeps interjecting her own uncertainties about each event and about their possible interpretation. Her companions remain silent and attentive. Cassandra’s expression cycles from reluctance to deep unease, and, by the end of Margo’s report, turns appalled. Varric keeps his face neutral, but it’s a cultivated kind of neutrality, a thin mask over something much grimmer. Solas's eyebrows are knit together, his eyes stormy, dark, and focused on something beyond their immediate surroundings, as if he is peering into fate’s hidden mechanism and realizing the clockwork has a terminal flaw. If Varric’s fatalism runs deep beneath the surface, Margo notes, not for the first time, that Solas’s does not.

“Solas, tell me this is impossible.” Cassandra’s temper rises into her voice. “You have spent days caring for the Herald. Surely you would have noticed a brand. It is not a subtle thing. Or have you concealed this from us?”

Solas’s gaze focuses on the warrior, his expression troubled. “No, Seeker. I noticed no such thing. Although I was admittedly distracted by my efforts to stabilize the mark before it killed the Herald.”

“Seeker Pentaghast,” Margo interjects before the warrior’s anger sidetracks them further. “It is, in fact, a subtle thing. Evie wears her bangs over it, and she covers it with face powder. And the scar itself is faint. Only visible at a certain angle, and maybe even only in a certain light.”

Cassandra sighs quietly, and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Very well. Let us suppose such a thing could be kept hidden. Solas. You are the mage. In your estimation, is the Herald, in fact, a Tranquil?”

The elf ponders his answer, but then he shakes his head firmly, once. “No. Her connection to the Fade is feeble, and…” His fingers flutter, as if trying to pluck the right expression from the air — or testing the texture of some invisible ligature. “Viscous. But it is no weaker than that of any arbitrary person's with no talent for magic — no different from an average warrior’s, or farmer’s. It is not severed. If it has been tampered with, the process was either incomplete, or else it did not bear fruit.”

“Do we know Tranquility can’t be reversed?” Varric scrapes at the stubble on his chin with a thoughtful glance at the seeker.

Cassandra shakes her head. “That should not be possible, no. It is a permanent procedure.”

Varric’s eyes narrow. “Is it? Remember Blondie, seeker?”

Cassandra winces before scowling at the dwarf in quick exasperation. “Yes, Varric, I am unlikely to forget the apostate who blew up the Kirkwall Chantry and was at the root of the mage rebellion. I also remember particularly well that he was one of your associates.” 

Varric makes another one of his “hold your horses” gestures before turning to Solas. “Not sure how much you know about the Kirkwall mess, Chuckles, but Blondie — Anders, that is — had a friend. Karl, his name was, as I recall. A close friend, from what I gathered, and a mage just like Blondie. Well, Karl was made Tranquil in the Kirkwall Circle — which, if you know anything about Kirkwall, shouldn’t surprise you one bit.”

Solas nods, seemingly in encouragement.

“Anyway, Blondie was… a bit of an unusual case, you might say. Though most of that was Justice, I guess. Drove him completely raving mad in the end, but that’s not the point of this story. Point is, Hawke, Blondie, and I… we got into an altercation with some Templars, and Justice... came up. Glowing eyes, voice from the grave, the whole thing. Helped us escape the Templars, but that’s not the point either. The point is that suddenly Karl reverted back to his old self. Emotions and all. It didn’t last long, though, because as soon as he did, Karl asked Blondie to put him out of his misery.”

“Your mage friend was possessed by a spirit of Justice?” Solas asks, eyebrows drawn in query.

“I don’t think it was that simple, Chuckles. He was still Anders then. Mostly, anyway. And then, slowly, he changed. By the end of it, there wasn’t much of him left in there, I don’t think.”

“Yes. Let it be clearly stated once and for all that the apostate was, in addition to everything else, an abomination, Varric.” Cassandra shakes her head in disgusted consternation.

Margo frowns, processing. Apparently, temples in Thedas have the unfortunate tendency to blow up. From what she can glean, there was some kind of plot involving one of Varric’s former friends, which served as the trigger for the beginning of the Mages vs Templars conflict. Or one of the triggers, anyway. She wonders whether this Anders had done it as a deliberate provocation to escalate a long-festering tension. 

Whatever drove the decision, the important part here is about the relationship between Anders and whatever “Justice” is. It doesn’t help that the term “abomination” appears to refer to a whole range of different experiences, although all revolve around the entanglement between a human and a spirit. Margo wonders what such a relationship would be like, and, recalling the cosmic asshole, shudders. 

But all of this feels tangential for the moment — there was an important argument Varric was trying to convey.

“Karl,” she finally remembers, and waves her finger in the air. All eyes turn to her, and she clears her throat. Right.  _ Abominations, Karl! _ All right. She can do this. She can have an intellectual meltdown later. “In the presence of Anders — his friend, this tranquil mage, you say he reverted to normal?”

Varric nods and gestures a “voila” with a theatrical flourish in Margo’s general direction.  “Not Anders, Prickly. Justice. When Justice took the reins, Karl got better.”

“A spirit’s presence in the waking world would make the Veil grow thin. In your friend’s company the mage most likely found that he could touch the Fade, however briefly.” 

Solas’s sing-song utterance has the effect of jolting Margo out of her cognitive muddle. “But once the spirit is no longer present, would the effect revert?”

Solas confirms this with a nod. “Yes, lethallan. A Tranquil mage is maimed beyond repair. Tranquility is no less permanent than an amputation.”

Or a lobotomy, Margo thinks to herself. You might make a prosthesis for an amputation.  She glances at Varric, who sports a slightly unfocused expression, as if he is trying to put together several parameters that have no particular desire to be combined.

“I do not mean to interrupt this discussion, but shall we return to the problem at hand? The Herald? Have we not established that she is not, in fact, Tranquil?” Cassandra drums her fingers on the table.

It’s Margo’s turn to shake her head. “Seeker, wait. Could a Rite of Tranquility be botched? Or… altered?” She taps her nail on the page of the alchemy manual. “There is something about Evie that is… unusual. I obviously cannot speak of the magic that is involved in this procedure, but Master Taigen’s tome here describes the precursor stage of lyrium processing necessary for the operation, and it is quite complex.” She is about to launch into a speculation of how the commodity chain of lyrium production would require for the mineral to be processed off-site, thus potentially decreasing standardization, but she cuts herself off abruptly. It is plausible that Maile might have wished to learn alchemy. It is considerably less likely that she would spew off a political analysis of the lyrium trade. 

And still. She can hear the shift — it’s not the words, exactly, it’s how she delivered them, that old, habitual speech pattern that sounds too scholarly for the role she is playing. Sure enough, both Cassandra and Varric are giving her odd looks, and Solas’s expression seems to contain a rather vehement warning.

“I have been meaning to ask you, agent. Are you, in fact, from Nevarra?”

Shit. Like watching a train careen off a bridge, while sitting in the last car. Margo swallows, trying frantically to think of a credible repair. “In your expert opinion, would the accent pass?” she asks.

Cassandra’s eyes widen in surprise. And then her expression changes, slowly, from suspicious to grudgingly impressed. “I… see.” She ponders the question. “It is not… bad. It is stable, which should help you. I would assume you from the southern regions of the country. Although perhaps not Cumberland. Your r-s are too soft, as if there is an Orlesian influence. It would not be uncommon for someone from the Fields of Ghislain, I suppose.”

Margo schools her face into a neutral expression before nodding sagely. Out of the corner of her eyes, she notices a minute shift to Solas’s posture, as if some of the tension releases him as well.

“Thank you, seeker. This identity is a work in progress.”

She gets a short nod.

Varric gives her a narrowed-eye look, but he doesn’t comment.

Solas motions with his hand. “I believe Margo wishes to draw our attention to the possibility that the procedure did not succeed. In your experience, Seeker Pentaghast, could such a thing occur?”

Cassandra’s scrutiny shifts to the elf, and Margo wrestles down the overwhelming desire to get up and kiss him. And, if she is to be honest with herself, not strictly in gratitude, either.

“There are records of the Rite not going as it should, but... Most of the time, this means that the mage does not survive.”

Varric frowns, the unfocused look resolving itself into alertness. “We’re missing an important detail, here. That brand — Prickly, you said it’s so faint you could barely see it? So, the question we really need to ask is  _ why _ . Seeker, the forehead branding — it was common in Kirkwall. Do all Circles do this?”

Cassandra nods slowly. “I am not a specialist in these matters, but I suppose some scarring is likely inevitable. Of course, Knight Commander Meredith did not feel inclined to minimize it.”

“To mar the face in such a way is to claim ownership. No different than the markings of a slave.” The quiet gravitas of the statement draws Margo’s eyes towards the elf again. She is not alone. Varric cocks an eyebrow. Cassandra shifts in place, clearly uncomfortable. Solas’s face is still carefully neutral — that pleasantly polite expression, again — but something else roils beneath the sculpted mask. Some kind of ineluctable, almost cosmological wrath.

“A slave’s markings are meant to have an audience, Chuckles. What’s the point of making them so subtle you can barely see them?”

Cassandra nods. “Yes. Perhaps … the agent is right. The procedure was aborted, and the scar remained incomplete.” 

Margo stills because, finally, whatever had been brewing in the back of her skull about the oddity of Evie’s scar suddenly resolves itself into a clear image. 

The scar isn’t incomplete. In fact, it is too careful. Too... perfect.

She’s pretty sure she turns momentarily slack-jawed under the impact of the insight. 

Of course. She should have figured this out earlier. “Varric,” she says carefully. “You are a merchant, yes?”

The dwarf wrinkles his brow in puzzlement. “When I’m not being dragged around Thedas and interrogated, sure.”

“A merchant house would use insignia to help a customer identify its wares, would it not? To authenticate them?”

Varric nods, and then his expression drifts from puzzled to stunned to the sudden, blinding light of understanding. Margo looks at the other two, and they are in lock-step with the dwarf. Solas abruptly detaches himself from the wall and starts pacing. Cassandra’s hand drifts to the hilt of her sword, seeking its stability, Margo guesses.

“You’re saying the scar’s a kind of merchant’s mark, Prickly?” The question isn’t one. Varric already knows the answer.

Margo nods. It is. A brand in every sense. Including in her world’s typical usage of the term.

“It’s the most logical explanation, no?” 

“But we do not yet know what it signals, if anything!” Cassandra tries to grasp at the last straws of sanity in the face of the monumental shift in worldview that Evie’s case seems to demand. “We do not know whether there is any connection at all between whatever was done to the Herald and her... luck bending problem. For all we know, the bad luck is the result of the mark on her hand!”

“And yet, we stand no chance of disaggregating these three issues without investigating further.” Solas pauses in his pacing and leans a shoulder against the bookshelf. “Unless we learn what happened to Evelyn Trevelyan, we are doing little more than stumbling blindly in the dark.”

Margo nods, briefly catching the elf’s gaze. There is a question there — a barely perceptible tilt to one eyebrow — which she interprets as a request for a private conversation sometime down the line. She inclines her head in a tiny nod.

“Shouldn’t we be asking why this was done in the first place?” Varric leans back in his chair. “We seem to be missing a crucial narrative ingredient. Motive.”

“This is true. But, for now, there is a more pressing matter.” Cassandra straightens, her jaw set at an angle that suggests she is entirely done with the hand wringing part of the exercise. “Yes. We must investigate. Vivienne, as I recall, is familiar with Ostwick. She may be a valuable resource, and I shall approach her. But we do not have the luxury of waiting before we make... accommodations. How wide is the radius of the Herald’s… effects?”

“Perhaps thirty feet?” the dwarf ventures. “Not sure. It seems to vary.”

Cassandra shakes her head again.  “Whatever it is, it seems clear that the only viable route for closing the Breach is the Templars. We know that the Herald is capable of closing rifts. That is, in fact, one of the only signs of success we can claim so far. If the luck bending effect is magical in nature, then the Templars will hopefully suppress it too. Which brings us to the question of how to secure their allegiance. May I, agent?”  Cassandra gestures at a free page in Margo’s journal. Margo nods. The warrior extracts the graphite stick from the journal’s binding and draws a quick, rough map of the Hinterlands.  “I will speak to Leliana and Cullen. We must shift our strategy to a campaign, and away from a set of discrete and decentralized operations. Tomorrow, at first light, we will constitute separate units. We must coordinate troop movement such that we have a rotation schedule. I do not want the Herald to be accompanied by the same team throughout. It is too exhausting and dangerous.” 

Cassandra, settling into the role of military commander, suddenly seems entirely at ease. Margo looks at her other companions, and notices a small twinkle to Varric’s eyes, as if he’s actually appreciating the show. 

“We know that a large contingent of Templars is camped out here” — an ‘X’ appears on the diagram — “and here. The mages are over on the other side of the refugee settlement. We will hit the two sides with parallel attacks, and dismantle the strongholds. We will then have the Herald move through the area as a… figurehead. All she will need to do is appear in the right place, and at the right time. We will also recruit aggressively while we’re there, and by the time Josephine is ready to wrangle the Orleasian nobility into helping us with getting an audience at Therinfal Redoubt, we will have something to show for ourselves.” 

Varric leans forward, chin on his fists. He looks up at the Seeker. “The kid’s especially hard on the mages, Cassandra. We need to make sure they have enough breathing room.” 

Cassandra nods. “Yes. The three of you. Report to me tomorrow morning, by morning chant at the absolute latest. I need someone who is … aware of the problem in each patrol. In case things do not go as predicted.”

Everything about Cassandra’s plan seems reasonable. And yet, Margo cannot shake the nagging feeling that the solution, such as it is, is merely cosmetic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by trebuchets and mysterious groups offering their services to certain select customers.
> 
> Next up: Fade visits from old friends


	26. Interlude: Some Art!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> RAGT, now with visual support!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am super excited to announce that RAGT now features some visual support! This illustration, done by the amazing and multitalented @Chelbizarro corresponds to "Name your Poison" (Chapter 7) of RAGT v.1.
> 
> And as an extra bonus, Chel was kind enough to do a Q&A, linked below the image.

Please enjoy the sight of Imshael wearing his Solas suit. My absolute favorite part of this image is this: if you look _very_ closely at the shadowed part of his silhouette, you will be able to tell that there's something... alarming about it (hint: Imshy wears that feathery shoulder pad mage armor in the game)

If you'd like to learn more about @Chelbizarro and her work, [check out the Q&A on Tumblr! ](https://paraparadigm.tumblr.com/post/184741426284/the-reluctant-alchemist-now-with-art-artist-qa)


	27. Night Terrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo receives a visitor of the demonic persuasion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I'm not sure exactly to CW for this chapter, but please be aware that this deals with issues of grief, mourning, and the loss of a child. Nothing graphic, but it's a bit angsty. Also, as always with chapters that feature Imshael, if you're triggered by emotionally manipulative characters, please approach the writing accordingly. <3

They all agree to walk back separately. Cassandra leaves first, and Margo follows a few minutes after. Outside, the wind howls. Abrasive, dry prickles of snow are hurled horizontally in a wall of white noise so thick that Margo cannot see further than her outstretched hand. She stumbles back over a path entirely concealed by the white-out, trying to hide her face from the icy gale.

By the time she gets within the enclosure, Haven is more snowbank than village. Margo wades through knee-high snow on her way to the apothecary. She’s not entirely sure she will actually make it there — her laborious stomping is accompanied by the distinct vision of falling into a particularly deep snowdrift and staying there as a frozen human-sized popsicle until the thaw, especially since the process is well underway: she can’t feel her toes, and her fingers are turning into bluish claws. But she does make it to the door, even though it takes her several tries to crack the crust of ice layered over the hinges. Eventually, she manages to yank the door open.

She stumbles through the still-warm space, peeling layers of snow-encrusted armor and clothing as she goes. At least, she is alone — an unsurprising circumstance, since Adan is rarely around in the evenings. The fire in the chimney is little more than faintly glowing embers, but the masonry of the hearth still radiates pleasant warmth. She restacks the fire before climbing up to the rafters.

Another layer of damp clothing peeled off and left out to dry, and she collapses on her pallet. She is asleep within minutes.

***

The scent greets her first. Not a single scent, exactly, but an intermingling of smells: loam; pine resin; the heady, sweet aroma of something blooming — jasmine with the overlay of another, more subtle floral sweetness. Perhaps, moonflower. A warm breeze sweeps over her skin, soft and cloying with pheromonal seductions meant to lure in nocturnal insects. She knows where she is, of course, even before she opens her eyes, which is why she puts it off for as long as she possibly can. Until she sees it, it doesn’t have to be real.

But then, the creeping sensation of being watched becomes too much. It turns out that she has company — though she knew that already, the second the dream began.

“Ah, ma da’elgar. Fancy meeting you here. Have you missed me? I was beginning to think that you were, perhaps, avoiding me.”

The thing that is not Solas awaits her on the edge of her daughter’s grave, sprawled on the little wooden bench that Jake had carved especially to fit within the wrought iron enclosure. Her brother had always channelled grief into his hands, and over the customary forty nine days of mourning, the bench had materialized, its shape emerging from the dark, hard wood of a bog oak. Austere, yet elegant. Atop its Fade equivalent, the demon stretches languidly, its lips curving in a familiar smile.

Margo stares at the doppelgänger. The feeling of violation at the fucking bastard invading this most intimate, sacred of spaces is so profound she’s not sure she can find words. “How dare you?” she finally asks, her tone flat.

The creatures rocks back into a sitting position, and then it stands up, brushing dry pine needles off its tunic. “Such a _charming_ place, my sweet poppet.” It tilts its head, something insectoid to the movement. “What a curious little thing you are. I will admit, I have been thoroughly enjoying these little…” it flicks its fingers and purses its lips… “‘nooks’ you’ve been building in the Fade. Such _richness_! Tragically wasted though it is.”

“You’re not welcome here. Leave.” Margo takes a step forward. She can feel her nails digging into her palms, but it’s a faraway sensation, a distant echo bouncing down the prism of pure, glacial fury. 

“Is that any way to treat a guest?” It approaches, trampling the hyacinths under its feet, the soft, juicy crunch of breaking stems deafening in her ears. It steps over the low fence. “You know I could rip this memory from you and it would leave nary a trace?” it asks pleasantly. “Pluck it out like an irritating weed. Here, then gone.” It considers her with the elf’s borrowed mineral grey eyes. “Nothing left of her, or you. Any of you. Your precious matriline. Gone. So I highly recommend you practice being  _ polite _ .”

“I will kill you,” Margo responds, somehow matching the demon’s conversational tone. She is at a point that lies so far beyond anger, so far off the axis of her ordinary emotional habits, that it is outside of her ability to fathom, or anticipate.

“Perhaps.” It smiles, though the expression is anything but jovial. “But I rather think not. In fact, I am of the opinion that, eventually, I will have you… ah… in a position where you are no longer so inclined to refuse my offers. But I can certainly wait.” It smiles. “ _ Until stars burn out, if you don't make up your mind. _ Your protests — entertaining though they are — just delay the inevitable.” It comes to stand in front of her, perhaps a foot away. Its physique is a perfect imitation — except something about it feels wrong, perversely out of joint. “Oh, but I see I’ve started off on the wrong foot, again, have I not? I am here with a proposal. Since you refuse my gifts, then how about a deal instead? I will make it fair.”

Margo stands her ground, though her skin prickles with revulsion. “There’s nothing you can offer me, thing. Leave.”

Its expression morphs from a kind of hard-edged, triumphant cruelty to gentle, heartbreaking tenderness in the blink of an eye. “And be deprived of the pleasure of your company? Tsk. Well. Do hear me out first, at least. What if I told you how to help your friends survive that terribly, unmercifully lucky leader of yours? Such  _ killer _ luck, is it not? You wouldn’t want to lose anyone to it, would you now? Luck is finite, poppet. Terrible, when it runs out. What a delightful dilemma, don’t you find?”

It starts to circle her, and she moves with it, like a sunflower following the sun, not letting it come up behind her back.

“Perhaps next time, the dwarf’s crossbow will explode, some errant shard puncturing his throat before a healer can get to him. Four quarts is still a lot of blood, when it’s all out like that.” It pauses and licks its lips. Margo weathers a wave of sudden nausea. “Or the beautiful warrior could slip on a cobblestone and hit the bone over her temple at just the wrong angle — very soft, the bone there. One might even mistake it for slumber. How shall we call it — ah, yes,  _ sleeping beauty _ . That should be familiar enough...” The thing’s eyes go out of focus, distant and trained on the outline of an invisible horizon. “Or that gallant Warden just might not dodge the blow in time.” It makes a sad little noise in the back of its throat. “Not all of us are meant to keep our heads, hmm?”

It comes to stand in front of her again and raises its hands, as if to cup her face. Margo recoils.

“Ah, but do not let me forget. Your wolf! Yes.” The thing that isn’t Solas shakes its head. “Have you seen red lyrium yet, heartling? No? You will. Not meant to protrude from one’s chest like that, is it? Makes all sorts of unmentionable things leak out, every which way. Doesn’t make for a pretty corpse — not peaceful at all, all that seepage. And no matter what else you are, you are all, still, such fragile little vessels, are you not?”

“You can take you prophecies and stuff them up your immaterial rectum,” Margo grinds out between her teeth.

The thing claps its hands and laughs — a merry, warm sound. “Oh, I do so like you, little spirit. Such fire! But you’re not listening. I offer you a simple solution. I can tell you how to prevent all that from happening. What’s a little knowledge traded between friends?” It slithers up to her again. “And is a kiss truly such a high price to pay? Are you so selfish that you would deny your comrades their best chance at survival just because you don’t find me  _ exactly _ to your liking?”

“Yes.” Margo tells it. “Fuck off.”

“Ah.” It tips its head to the side, observing her with alien curiosity. “Did I don the wrong mask? Is that it? Would... this one suit you better?”

Of all the faces he could wear, he chooses Ivan. Ivan, with his cornflower blue eyes and Slavic cheekbones, Ivan who could never grow a proper beard even by twenty. She’d teased him mercilessly about it when they were teenagers. Ivan, whose face had faded from her memory to an abstract placeholder until the demon replicates it. This is not  _ her _ Ivan, of course — and not the one who left her with a dead child and a broken heart. This Ivan is a decade older, with salt at his temples, his face gaunt and angular as if life had taken him on a hard ride since she saw him last. This Ivan’s eyes are haunted the way her Ivan’s never were — regret and longing mingling together.

Margo inches back, and then forces herself to hold her ground. “I find your cruelty deeply unoriginal.” For a few moments, she feels almost pleased with herself.

The creature stalks closer, and then, suddenly, the dislocation of its mask dissolves, and she is staring at her former husband, as intimately familiar as her own face in the mirror — the one she lost to her transplantation.

“Rita, I’m sorry,” Ivan says. “I’m so sorry,  _ draga _ .” He cups her face. Margo flinches. She struggles against a sudden feeling of inevitability — the nightmare pulsing with its own inexorable unfolding. She knows exactly what is to come, how it would play out. The sudden memory overtakes her, sucking her under its tide. He smells exactly as he used to, of machine oil and basil aftershave and just a little bit of sweat, when he would come home after working on Uncle Janos’s ever breaking Lada. A true piece of shit, that car was. The kiss, when it comes, will be gentle and soft — and achingly familiar. Ivan always smiled into his kisses. His hand will snake into her hair, cupping the back of her head. His other palm will rest against her cheek, the calluses a sharp contrast to the soft way his thumb will trace the corner of her lips. He will brush his lips against hers, and then he will deepen the kiss, and his hands will trail down her neck, pushing the chemise down off one shoulder, then the other. The fabric will pool at her feet. He will step back then, his eyes glittering with a kind of stunned appreciation — as if, even after all those years, he is still surprised by the sight of her bare skin. She will undo his belt — and, inevitably, it will get caught because the buckle is broken, and he never bothered to fix it. She’ll push him down on their old, lumpy mattress and he’ll come down hard, laughing, and pull her on top of him at the last moment, just when she thought she won the upper hand. They’re silly. They’re always silly. She’ll whack him with a pillow, and he’ll confiscate it eventually, throwing it across the room, but she will retaliate by attempting to tickle him, despite his claims to being immune. He’ll pin her beneath him and restrain her wrists with his large, calloused palm. She’ll pretend to struggle, laughter bubbling up to the surface, until he trails kisses down her belly, and then — a flash of cornflower blue, mirth dancing in his eyes — and he will put his mouth on her, and he knows her by heart, by rote, every little twitch and moan and shudder, even in the worst of it, even when the contours of their broken future already loom on the horizon… But here, in this moment, before Lily, they are still so achingly young...

Margo stumbles back, and the compulsion of the memory shatters, releasing her from its trajectory. She breathes out a shaky sigh. “Nice try, shitgibbon, better luck next time. At least don’t insult my intelligence.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Imshael comments in Ivan’s voice, his tone perversely, heart-wrenchingly gentle. “If I were intent on duping you, poppet, do you truly believe you would know it? Do not insult  _ my _ intelligence. This was an offer — one gift I  _ could _ give you. No strings attached.”

Margo barks a laugh. “The gift that keeps on giving, huh? What part of ‘fuck off’ requires explaining?”

It contemplates her with a wry glint in its stolen eyes. “Ah, but I  _ am _ learning. For example...”

It’s fast. Before Margo can blink, it shrinks in size, limbs shortening and filling out, skin darkening to a rich olive tone, a shade lighter than her own. Hair sprouts from its head, until the skull is hidden behind a corona of curly ringlets, a deep chestnut brown. Its features distort and miniaturize — a button nose, a little bow of a mouth, and large grey eyes ringed with long eyelashes.

Margo looks down in utter, soul-sucking terror.

Lily — because, of course, it is her — never did look like this. Here she is about three, over half a year past the time when the illness ate her alive. She is glowing and healthy, chubby and dimpled like the world’s most huggable rubber ball. She is wearing the dress that Baba had knitted for her last journey — bright yellow, with big red poppy flowers. Two ponytails stick out like little curly antennae, on each side of her head. She’s right at that cusp between toddlerhood and childhood, where the outline of the little girl she will become shines through the still babyish features.

“Mama?” Lily says, a bright sound, like silver bells, and then her chin begins to tremble, the shock of mom suddenly reappearing after a long absence. “Mama… Mama!”

Margo feels her legs buckle under her, and she falls on her knees, onto the lush grass, suddenly eye-level with her daughter. Lily extends her chubby little arms — in the last year of life, she never did have those sweet dimples at the elbows, because she could never keep on the weight. Big fat tears creep slowly down her round cheeks. “Mama I miss you,” she wails. “Hug!” She doesn’t quite pronounce her ‘h-s’ yet.

Lily, of course, never spoke English — the sound is a translation. The realization is the only thing that keeps Margo from throwing her arms around the beloved nightmare. “Oh my baby,” she sobs instead. Still, it takes everything she’s got — everything she’s ever had — not to scoop up her daughter in her arms.

Because, of course, it isn’t her daughter.

She digs her fingers into the earth, the scream inside her gathering power.

“Mama?” Lily whimpers, big round eyes growing foggy with hurt and fear. “Mama, are you mad? I’m sorry, mama, I won’t do it again...”

“No, bunny.  _ I’m _ so sorry. You’re gone. This isn’t you.”

Margo feels the tears roll down her cheeks, but they seem like the least relevant thing in the world at that moment. In the end, she doesn’t quite know what she does, except something inside her shifts, fractures, and then rearranges itself into a new, sore, and profoundly other configuration.

The moonflower vine that climbs the scaly reddish pines moves and slithers towards her. The delicate flowers, like alien eyes, rotate slowly on their axial stems in the cloying, perfumed darkness. The grass under Lily’s feet shudders and bends, tiny prehensile hairs. The scent of jasmine thickens to something you could choke on. It all pulses under her skin, verdant, vegetative, perversely aware, the Fade responding to an articulation of her consciousness, old as her own sense of self, and likely older, as old as Baba — or whoever (or whatever) came before her. The thing that pulses through the archaic roots of the matriline.

“Go back to sleep, my love,” Margo tells the apparition, because thinking of her as a mere mask would break her.

The vines twine around Lily’s little legs and arms and lift her up, gently, over the enclosure, swaying and rocking her towards the grave. The earth under the trampled hyacinths turns soft and loamy.

“Mama, no! Please!” A desperate sob. “Mama, mama, it’s dark in there!” The child breaks into an anguished wail. “There’s monsters!”

Margo covers her ears with her hands, shuts her eyes tight, though she does not need to see to animate the plants — the Fade is all too happy to anticipate her wishes. She’s pretty sure she’s screaming through all of this, but the knowledge is hypothetical. Later, when she tries to describe the events to Solas, she will break down into hysterical, hiccuppy sobs because there are absolutely no words in any language to capture the feeling of dragging your own daughter’s struggling body into the soft earth of an upturned grave.

And then, at length, it’s over, and Margo releases the fabric of the memory, allowing for the flora to settle back into passivity. She opens her eyes.

The thing that is not Solas is sitting on the bench. The hyacinths on the grave are undisturbed.

The creature beams at her. “What a rare find you are, my sweet morsel! I just  _ knew _ there was something interesting about you.”

Slowly, Margo straightens. “This is not yours. This will never be yours. Fuck. Off,” she whispers, and then, drawing on whatever fractured jagged thing that now snags at her insides, pulls the membrane of the memory into herself, and past the incorporeal body of the demon. Like trying to pull a rug from under someone’s feet. The effort of it is monumental — like shifting an entire system of coordinates from beneath the universe it structures.

There’s a momentary expression of surprise to the mask the thing wears, and then the cosmic asshole vanishes, like the bad dream he is.

Margo opens her eyes and leans off the straw pallet, just in time to vomit a thin stream of bile, mixed with clumps of half-coagulated blood.

***

She gets up, and then almost collapses back onto the floor. Gets up again — gingerly, this time — and leans her forehead against a roof beam until the world stops spinning. Slowly, meticulously, she makes her way down the ladder, trying not to slip and break her neck in the process — though, based on the general state of affairs, that might actually be a mercy.

Back on the ground floor, she unstoppers an elfroot potion and downs the contents in several long gulps. The nausea passes slowly, as if the efficacy of the draught is diminished by her body’s unwillingness to absorb it. Unless, of course, it is not her  _ body _ that suffered whatever damage the Cosmic Asshole inflicted.

After about five minutes of sitting at the desk and mindlessly digging out bits of pulverized insect from the cracks in the wood — Master Adan did leave a spectacular mess — she feels solid enough to go clean up the mess upstairs.

Outside, it’s still pitch black. She’s awake in the dead of night, yet again, but at least the snow has stopped, and she can see unfamiliar clusters of stars through the window. The room is dark enough for their wan light to filter through the pane of mica glass.

She’s Ok. If she doesn’t think about it. She’s fine.

Margo downs another potion, vaguely registering that she in a state of general undress, the air cool against her bare legs beneath the long linen shirt, but the thought of fussing with the wrappings and the armor feels like the equivalent of trying to ascend Mount Everest skipping on one foot the whole way up. Still. She uses the dried, frayed stem of a vandal aria to clean her teeth and mouth of the foulness. She opens the door, almost relishing the slap of bracingly cold air. She gathers a handful of snow. She shuts the door and uses the snow to wash her face.

See? Fine.

The night is bright and silent. She’s so busy actively ignoring whatever is happening inside her head, that her focus, now directed entirely to the outside world, snags on an unfamiliar object she had somehow overlooked earlier. A bottle of some kind of amber liquid rests in the courier basket by the door. Margo picks up the folded note that accompanies it. 

_ “To Apprentice Alchemist Margo, Agent of the Inquisition.” _

She breaks the waxy seal.

_ “Dear Agent, _

_ I believe you were sent to us by the Maker himself. Our digestively challenged guests are reporting that their levels of discomfort are much lessened already, thanks to your efforts. I am including a small token of my gratitude. It is Antivan — not the best year for that vintage, but far above average. _

_ With appreciation, _

_ ~Lady J. Montilyet, Ambassador. _

_ PS: If you have a moment tomorrow, I wish to request a short consultation regarding another matter. I would be in your debt.” _

Margo folds the letter and places it on the desk.

And then she considers the bottle, still in the basket.

She could just drink it. Why not? Is there, in fact, a good reason not to?

She’s not sure how much time passes. In the end, the only thing that stops her from chugging back the liquor is the knock on the door.

Margo gets up without really thinking about who might be visiting the apothecary in the dead of night in the middle of a monumental snow storm, and she flings the door open. A frigid gust of wind covers her skin in goosebumps.

Somehow, she is entirely not surprised to discover Solas waiting on her doorstep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by Imshael, who is a trope-savvy villain. In fact, he sometimes wears different persona and parachutes Easter eggs into his diatribes. Today's less recognizable citation is from a pretty terrible 1990s movie called The Prophesy, featuring Christopher Walken. See if you can spot the quote ;)
> 
> Next up: Philosophical smut? Smutty philosophy? Definitely gratuitous applications of Descartes, with apologies to poor René.
> 
> Comments and concrit always welcome. Thank you for your reading eyes.


	28. Deus Ex Machina (*)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo and Solas discuss Cartesian dualism, and get a bit carried away. (On the NSFW side of the equation, please read accordingly)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more quick update before RL buries me under another pile of work.

Margo steps aside, gestures for Solas to come in, and shuts the door behind him.

She doesn’t meet the elf’s gaze. Instead, she fixes her eyes on the wall, which, aside from a thick crust of alchemical grime and Adan’s incomprehensible scribbles, has exceptionally little to recommend it.

“Ma da’nas, what happened?”

Turning to look at him requires the kind of bracing effort that setting a dislocated limb would. On the count of three…

In the end, she does it, the breath rushing out through her teeth in a soft hiss. And then it really is just Solas. Traces of recent sleep linger in his rumpled clothing and in the reddish imprint on one cheek.

“I felt a strange disturbance in the Fade. I sought you out, but could not find you.”

He looks her over, frowning in puzzlement. His expression morphs as he realizes what she is wearing. He colors. Slightly at first, and then quite a bit more noticeably. His frown deepens, edging away from slightly embarrassed discomfiture to concern.

“You’ll have to excuse the appearance. I wasn’t expecting company.” There. That sounds like a completely reasonable statement, given the circumstances.

His eyes take her in one more time, and then he regroups and focuses on her face. “Tell me what occurred,” he urges softly.

Margo’s attention returns to the wall. She feels trapped and therefore vaguely resentful. She was fine. This did not need to be dealt with immediately. Or ever. If she just ignores it…

“Margo.”

Her name on his lips hooks her like a summoning. It also jolts her out of the dissociative state, and slams her right back into the here and now — a change for which she feels no gratitude whatsoever. But ostrich politics never gets anyone anything other than a mouthful of sand, so Margo does the next most logical thing under the circumstances. She pads, barefoot, to the shelf that contains the glass beakers. Selects two that could, if one squints, pass for whiskey glasses. And then she returns and hands one to the elf.

“I will explain, but I need an analgesic. However, I would rather not drink alone, and since you’re here, would you…?” she waves her hand at the bottle of Antivan stuff in the basket by the door.

To his credit, Solas not only takes this new development in stride, but does so with flair. He plucks her glass from her hands and sets both on the desk, then he examines the contents of the courier basket, lifts the bottle, and extracts the cork with a quick flutter of fingers and a wave of ozone — changing the internal pressure to push the cork out, she guesses. He lights one of the larger candles on the workstation, and the room is bathed in a soft, warm glow. And then he pours two equal measures of the amber liquid — which, to Margo’s surprise, fills the air with the scent of an expensive Madeira — into the questionable glassware.

“Sit, if you would.” It doesn’t sound like much of a request at all. She complies. Solas hands her the drink before settling in the chair opposite hers, with his own glass balanced in his hands.

“To whose benefit shall we toast today?” the elf asks, and while there is a trace of irony in his voice, his expressions remains grave.

“May all living beings benefit,” Margo offers formally, if rather dryly. She leans forward and clinks her glass against his.

“An overly generous proposition.” He takes a small sip. His eyebrows shoot up in a mild surprise and he hums appreciatively. Margo sticks her nose into her own beaker, inhales, and brings the liquid to her lips. It is rich, smooth, and delicious — a floral sweetness with a hint of tartness in the aftertaste.

“Tell me what occurred.”

She leans back in her chair and briefly considers her general state of undress. Well, at least she did bother with underwear, so there is that. She crosses her legs — no dignified way of pulling this off in a tunic that doesn’t extend past her upper thighs, but she makes do — and she proceeds to tell her second nocturnal visitor about the first one.

Eventually, as the story unfolds, her detached façade begins to crack. And then, finally, when she gets to Lily, it all comes crashing down. When she finds herself racked with angry sobs, Solas gets to his feet, but before he can make his way over to her, Margo meets his gaze and shakes her head once.

“I can’t outsource this to you, but...” she trails off. “I appreciate…” The rest doesn’t quite come out.

“I understand.” He settles back into his seat.

At length the tears run dry, and somehow, with Solas as her silent, patient witness, the ruptured thing inside begins to mend a little. Margo wipes at her cheeks and finishes her story.

Solas remains silent for a long time. They sit, motionless, and Margo allows her gaze to come unmoored, the leaden stupor of emotional exhaustion settling over her like a heavy shawl.

“It appears that the Forbidden One is escalating his overtures.” Beneath his placid tone, the echoes of some other emotion Margo cannot begin to unpack. “But we suspected this would happen. When did he visit you last?”

Margo thinks back to the Avvar prison. Right. She never did tell him about that. “Not since the Avvar keep.”

“You did not mention this to me,” he observes, again with that oh-so-careful neutrality.

“I did not. Amund — the Avvar ritual specialist — interrupted the dream. He told me that I needed to stop… inviting Imshael.” There is a brief flare of banked anger in Solas’s gaze, and Margo averts her eyes. “I had thought that there was, in fact, a chance that I was bringing this on myself.”

He shifts in his chair. “No more than a brightly colored fruit is deliberately tempting you to eat it, but even so, you should have spoken to me of this.”

She cuts him an arch glance. “Do I look like a brightly colored fruit to you?” Her tone notwithstanding, she finds herself partly curious whether there is something about her presence in the Fade — aside from the mismatch between body and spirit Solas had mentioned before — that might be helping Imshael latch onto her.

“At the moment?” A trace of wry amusement flashes beneath the overlay of concern and discomfort. His eyes flicker over her naked legs, and Margo half expects his next line to be some innuendo-laden jape. But he surprises her. “Nothing quite so common,” he sighs quietly.

It’s definitely not just the warm and fuzzies this time, and Margo takes up the task of carefully examining an entirely uninteresting knot in the floorboard under her feet. Still, she is grateful for the distraction.

When she meets his eyes again, Solas’s expression is grim.

“The symptoms you described following your dream suggest some lingering damage. We must consider the possibility that your visitor is feeding on you.” His lips press into a hard line.

Margo's stomach knots with dread. She winces, but then she manages to rally whatever passes for her intellectual capacity these days. Right. Keep it abstract. “So demons feed on people.” A bitter chuckle escapes her. “No wonder the Chantry disapproves.”

Solas lifts a shoulder in a shrug and tilts his head to the side, a strange intransigence settling over his features. “Some do, certainly. As to the Chantry’s doctrine on the subject matter… Would you pass judgement on a wolf or a bird of prey for seeking sustenance in accordance with its nature? Even a druffalo depends on grazing in a pasture. Whatever life a plant might lead, it is life nonetheless, and yet I see no tears shed over its termination.”

Margo raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Why do I have the distinct impression that we’re back to the fruit metaphor again?”

The elf leans back in his chair and takes a sip from his glass. “It is prudent to approach the Fade and its denizens with clarity and without undue hubris, letha'laim. Plenty of spirits have little interest in the affairs of mortals. But the Fade is a complex world — no less complex or dangerous than its waking counterpart, and, arguably, more so.”

Margo tries to smother the flare of irritation, and fails. “I didn’t exactly ask for any of this, Solas.”

“You most certainly did not. But here you are regardless of intention, and I would not do you the disservice of dangerous coddling disguised as empty reassurances.”

She chuckles, abstractly amused at the parallelism. Had she not thought the very same thing about him when the accursed memory ritual entangled them into… whatever this is? “Fair enough. Where I come from, we think of ourselves as the apex predator. This is going to take a bit of adjustment.”

He remains silent.

Margo takes a breath, releasing it slowly. The world is all that is the case. Raging against it is going to accomplish absolutely nothing. “So, let me see if I can get the mechanics straight, at least. Imshael’s gambits have to do with choice, correct? So it’s still getting me to make choices — even if it’s not the choices it claims it wants.” She looks up at her companion, the full horror of the situation suddenly coming into sharp focus. She congratulates herself on her steady tone. An academic conundrum. Keep it theoretical. “If so, then I presume it’s just distracting me with the illusion of a preferred choice. Is it possible that the mere act of choosing — however one does — would be enough for it to feed?” Her eyes go wide with the sudden insight. “So the second it makes an offer...”

Solas nods, with a trace of reluctance. “It is possible. It is an ancient spirit, and it had ample opportunity to elaborate its approach — it would not have survived for as long as it has if it were not versatile. Though you managed to gain an advantage over it in your last encounter, I doubt it will relinquish its claim on you easily.” His expression softens. “I… I wish that I could offer you more tangible succor than whatever weapons clearer understanding lends, but I fear such interventions would not be the wisest course of action in the long run.”

Margo sighs. “Tough love approach, huh?” She waves his protest away. “I wasn’t asking for a crutch.”

“Nor did I expect that you would.”

She returns to the stimulating task of staring at the floor, because the next logical question is not one she is ready to face herself — let alone, with someone else present. Not even him. Especially not him. “Could its prophesying be true?” she finally asks, her voice carefully modulated. “If the situation I’m in is a double bind anyway — as in, fuck if you do, and fuck if you don’t — then the most strategically logical option, in the grand scheme of things, might be to cut a deal.” She swallows. “All living beings benefiting, and all that.”

Solas does not respond for a long time, and as the silence stretches, Margo closes her eyes, for fear that this will culminate in exactly the kind of answer she’s afraid she must face.

When she looks up again, two things have shifted. Solas is no longer in his seat, and her glass has been refilled.

She finds the elf crouching at her feet, his hands resting on the armrests of her chair. She never heard him move. His forearms bracket her bare legs. “Absolutely not.” He lifts his gaze to hers, his eyes aglow with some arcane emotion. “I…” Judging by his expression, he’s looking for words to convey just how much the idea does not appeal, but he is coming up profoundly short. “The price it would exact would not justify whatever protection it promises, nor would it match in value whatever knowledge it purports to share.” His tone is suspiciously even.

Did Baba not have similar words of wisdom to offer? Margo meets her companion’s gaze. “Considering what we’re beginning to learn about Evie, Cosmic Shitgibbon is not entirely wrong. About the luck thing, anyway. I cannot shake the feeling that we have little recourse as it is.” She sighs. “And that we’re running out of time and options.”

“We would certainly do well to discover the causes behind the Herald’s peculiar predicament, as well as gain a better understanding of its potential consequences.”

Margo narrows her eyes, an errant thought niggling at the back of her mind. “You called Imshael ‘The Forbidden One.’ Forbidden by whom? Or to whom?”

Solas stands up with uncharacteristic brusqueness, picks up his brandy from the desk, and starts pacing. “That is an old tale, ma’nas. I would be happy to share with you what I recall of it. But not tonight.” She notices his omission of the diminutive prefix in the endearment, and at the switch in meaning that this implies her heart does a painful little skip. Between “little soul” as a referent for her strange predicament, and the rather more intimate claim entailed in “ma’nas” — my soul — the contrast suddenly feels momentous. Before she can get lost in semantics, he continues. “There is always too little time. But in this interval left to us, at least for now, I would rather have you ponder more pleasant things. This matter of your visitor will have to be addressed, and soon. But for the moment... the next few days may prove harrowing enough.” He pauses before turning to her. “If you are not intent on sleep, would you speak to me a little of your world? It is not over wine, certainly, but perhaps an adequate alternative?”

Margo looks at him incredulously, and then she finds herself smiling, despite everything. “What would you like to know?”

About half-an-hour from there, and of all the paths they might have traveled, a heated debate over Descartes is not one she would have anticipated. She’s not even entirely sure why they ended up with that particular topic in the first place, but his questions queried her over her world’s influential philosophical traditions, while she kept returning to the problem of spirits and bodies — and Descartes seemed like one possible triangulation of the two problems.

Solas seems to have remarkably few issues with the whole “ _Cogito ergo sum_ ” assertion. And whatever it is about her explanation of Cartesian dualism and its critiques, it rubs the elf the wrong way.

“Do I understand correctly that your world has no equivalent of the Fade? Would such polemics not be little more than intellectual abstractions, given the circumstances?”

“Comparatively speaking, my world’s disenchantment is a relatively recent framework. Much of the philosophy I mentioned is rooted in theism. In this, it’s not that different from Thedas and what the Chantry teaches, if I understand your concept of the Maker correctly. Of course, it might be a false equivalence, I’d have to dig into your theology...”

The conversation meanders. He adopts a crassly pragmatist position, along the lines of “well, there _are_ spirits, and there _are_ material bodies” — motioning at her by way of evidence. A small smile tugs at the corner of his lips, which makes Margo suspect that the elf has elected a deliberately spurious line of argument, and it annoys her enough that she starts throwing French phenomenology at him. She could have gone to Buddhism for the non-dualist route, but she’s rustier on it. He listens carefully, with a fetching little smile, and then proceeds to poke holes in her discussion of intersubjectivity. “Elegant, but static, and yet entirely too vague.”

He keeps her on her toes, and, absorbed by the sheer pleasure of their discursive fencing, Margo almost forgets the night’s earlier events by the time she finishes her second glass of Antivan stuff. The brew is deceptively strong.

In response to a particularly egregious and convoluted counterargument, Margo accuses Solas of sophistry. And then, at his quirked eyebrow, she finds herself explaining the term. Solas’s expression flashes with recognition before turning momentarily incensed. He narrows his eyes and parries with his own counter-accusation regarding her debating techniques. It’s a short string of Elvhen with lots of glottal stops that, after she quizzes him about the expression’s meaning, Solas translates as “a deliberate error in logic espoused for the purpose of pushing your opponent to adopt an untenable claim.”

He is leaning back in his seat, in that radical dissident pose he is coming to adopt more and more frequently in her company.

“Stop the reductions to absurdity, and I’ll stop… repeat that term to me again?” She purses her lips and waits for the next snooty accusation of deductive fallacy.

“Kiss me,” he suddenly requests, his voice quiet and a little hoarse.

It shoots through her like a jolt of electricity. “That is not a valid argument,” Margo notes cautiously.

“But a perfectly valid proposition.” He fails to break eye contact.

Oh, it’s like that, is it?

It is probably the drink, or perhaps the emotional stress, but Margo finds herself standing up and bridging the distance to his chair. Solas tilts his head back to look at her. After a few seconds of deliberation, she straddles his thighs and lowers herself into his lap.

And, to be fair, this is not quite what the elf had bargained for. She watches his pupils dilate, his lips parting on an involuntary “oh.” He hesitates, suddenly uncertain about what to do with himself, and then he brings his hands to her hips, the touch cool through the thin fabric of the linen tunic.

Margo cups his face, her thumbs tracing the contour of his cheekbones. She leans in, halting a fraction of an inch away from meeting his lips. His breath ghosts across her skin. She shifts to a more comfortable position — a maneuver met with a soft and rather vexed groan.

“Be careful what you wish for, yes?”

The provocation engenders retaliation. His hands slide down and travel beneath the hem of her shirt before beginning a slow, meticulous exploration, trailing up her thighs and then further up, following the lines of her waist. “An excellent point, in retrospect, given that you are wearing rather fewer clothes than usual.” He sounds a tad strained. “It seems hardly equitable.”

“Is that a complaint?” Margo asks.

His return smirk is cheeky, but his eyes on her are pure heat. Nothing playful about it. “No.” He pauses. “And yes.”

“Ambivalent.”

He chuckles. His hands glide over her ribs, his fingertips tracing the ridge of one of her body’s multiple scars. And then they travel a little higher.

“What are you doing?” Margo squeaks, vaguely surprised that linguistic capacity hasn’t shut down yet.

“Merely deciding how to resolve the ambivalence. Would you have me stop?”

“No, but I suspect that ‘resolving the ambivalence’ has a rather teleologically predetermined outcome.” Vaguely, as if through a fog, Margo considers the likely absence of Greek influences in Common, as it pertains to the concept of teleology. The thought, such as it is, is a distant sort of thing — flickering out there in the haze. “A predetermined result,” she supplies belatedly.

Another quiet chortle, and then his exploration changes course. His palms venture down and come to rest over the curve of her ass. He pulls her forward slightly and readjusts them such that they fit together somewhat less uncomfortably. A little moan escapes her — if there were any doubts about the teleological trajectory of their discussion, this certainly resolves them, and rather firmly at that.

“It is my understanding that Ancient Elvhen had the opposite concept,” Solas reflects, and if his voice seems perfectly serene once again, Margo is not fooled. Her hands rest against the sides of his neck and his pulse is frantic beneath her fingers. He utters a complicated phonetic sequence she doesn’t even attempt to reproduce.

“Meaning?”

His eyes crinkle with sharp humor. “An eventuality delayed indefinitely on account of its inevitability.”

Margo tries to process this — it takes her longer than it normally would, since she is working with a handicap — but, eventually, she shakes her head in condemnation. “Did ancient elves have inordinately long life-spans? Only a people who don’t worry about mortality would come up with such a thoroughly perverse idea.”

His quiet chortle sends tingling tendrils down her spine, and his hands begin their exploratory journey again. The insight skips away. “You have yet to kiss me,” he remarks, his eyes on her lips. “Must I beg?”

“That’s a thought.” She leans a little closer. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to, by the way.”

“And what am I ‘up to’?”

She meets his gaze. “You’re distracting me. But mostly, you’re reclaiming Imshaels’ request as your own. Sometimes I suspect that your secret agendas have secret agendas. But I’m on to you…”

Before she can elaborate further, Margo sucks in a breath and arches against him, because the elf’s itinerant fingers, which have resumed their upward climb, are trailing along a particularly sensitive stretch of skin right above her solar plexus. His palm settles there against her heart, no doubt picking up on its frenzied fluttering. His other hand, at the small of her back, locks her in place.

Judging by his body’s reaction, she is not alone in her general state of unfulfilled anticipation, so at least there’s that. “Oh, very well,” he breathes out. It comes out as a whisper, rough and a little uneven. “ _Please_ , ma’nas. Kiss me.”

His words transmute into searing heat, and Margo feels her body turn soft and pliant in response. Before she loses all capacity for intentionally directed action, she rocks forward, obliging his request.

He lets her set the pace, so she can feel, viscerally, the moment when his control begins to fray. If the elf had any compunctions about where his hands should or should not travel, by mid-kiss they are discarded. Margo moans helplessly against his mouth, because inhabiting a form one did not spend a lifetime domesticating apparently signifies that when his hands finally cup her breasts, the touch feels unprecedented to the point of mild shock.

He breaks away and stares at her with that strange, slightly tortured frown of his that mixes, in equal proportions, desire and astonishment. And then he shakes it off in favor of trailing a line of sharp little nips along her jaw.

Margo’s hands set off on their own excursion by this point, and, before long, she is trying to figure out how to extract him out of his accursed sweater. The task appears more logistically taxing than it has any right to be, which brings her to the only logical conclusion that turtlenecks are morally reprehensible, and should be banned.

“Bed?” he whispers against her neck. He grazes the sensitive skin over the pulse point beneath her ear, earning himself a quiet gasp. “Desk?” His thumbs trace the underside of her breasts. A quiet groan escapes him. “Floor? Wall?” Another soft bite.

Margo tries to swallow back the moan, but it’s no use. “What’s wrong with the chair?” she manages. Because why travel far?

“The window concerns me.” One hand returns to her hip before sliding over her abdomen. He undoes the string that holds her undergarments in place with a firm tug, and his fingers set forth towards new discoveries.

By that point, Margo is no longer above begging either. She leans to the side — which has the effect of granting him quite a bit more access, an opportunity which he immediately exploits — and she blows out the single candle. She settles back into his lap, navigating by feel in the sudden darkness. “I take it you’ve resolved the ambivalence.”

“I suppose I have.” She can feel his lips curving into a smile against her ear. “You are overdressed.”

“Then I propose you take it upon yourself to remedy this oversight,” Margo suggests in the most formal tone she can muster under the circumstances. His laughter, warm and low and a little breathless sends a shudder through her. She reaches down between them, and his chortling turns into a strangled growl.

“You have me at a disadvantage.” He manages to keep his voice commendably even, though his hips jerk beneath her, arching him into her touch.

“Is that your way of saying you’d rather be on top?”

His grip on her hips tightens and he draws in a ragged breath. “Not expressly, though I would be happy to accommodate, if that is your wish.”

Whatever part of Margo’s mind is in charge of fatalism, it has somehow managed to internalize the idea that whatever hypothetical deity might be in charge of Thedas, it is a faithful acolyte of Murphy’s Law. And thus, when in the next instant a tentative knock resonates at the door, she’s not, in fact, surprised at all.

They both freeze, but her next impulse — to flee upstairs and frantically try to get herself presentable — is interrupted in its tracks. The elf locks her firmly against him, and then his lips find her ear.

“Hush,” he says. “They may yet leave.”

They remain still for a few moments. When a second knock doesn’t follow, Solas, apparently not content to let time go to waste, grazes the shell of her ear with his teeth. Margo squirms against him — and is rewarded by a mildly indignant little _hmpf_.

There’s a loud, clanking thud outside — not so much an intentional knock, as the sound of something large, heavy, and quite possibly armored collapsing against the door.

Margo freezes. Solas lets out a resigned sigh and motions at the candle. In the next instant, the wick flares to life. Margo squints against the sudden glare. They look at each other.

“I think the Deus Ex Machina just broke down.” At the elf’s drawn eyebrows and disgruntled look, Margo dissolves into a fit of barely contained chortles. “I promise I’ll explain. You might even enjoy the irony. Probably at a later time, though.”

He narrows his eyes at her in mock accusation, his expression rueful, abstractly amused, a little worried, and utterly frustrated all at once. “Kiss me one more time, ma’nas. And then you will get back into your clothes and we will see who is in such desperate need of an alchemist at this hour that they are willing to sleep on your doorstep in the snow.” His lips quirk. “And I will strive not to resolve their difficulties rather more permanently,” he adds with alarming cheerfulness.

Margo nods, still stifling the giggles. She has the firm intention of making the kiss perfectly chaste — but... well. When she breaks away, Solas gives her a wounded look. “Fenor, have mercy. I am not made of stone. Unless you do wish for us to ignore your third visitor of the evening, which I would happily advocate for if you believe my arguments will sway you.”

“With our luck?” Margo shakes her head regretfully and plants a kiss on the tip of his nose. “It’s probably a matter of life or death. I don’t believe ignoring is an option.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by Descartes, and my musings about how Ancient Elvhen might have dealt with the concept of "slow burn." :-P 
> 
> Next up: Repairing the Deus Ex Machina (also known as Cullen needs to take better care of himself)


	29. Ball and Chain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo learns that lyrium is bad for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: references to drug use

Margo’s glib prediction about life and death turns out perversely prophetic.

Something swirls, restless, at the back of her mind. Hard to say what, exactly, but the scientifically rigorous term “bad feeling” seems like an accurate description.

Once they disengage, Margo springs into action. The alchemy of the hormonal high mixed with the alcohol converts (thank you, Unspecified but temporarily accommodating Deity) to a jolt of adrenaline. It’s a muddled, tingly sensation. She can still feel the ghost of Solas’s touch on her skin, like an intimate haunting. But since the Deus Ex Machina can’t be helped, she forces her attention to narrow down to the task at hand.

First things first, then. She can navigate the apothecary with her eyes closed by now, and the semi-darkness is no obstacle in her ascent upstairs — until, that is, her underwear attempts an inopportune escape. She swears, not entirely sure what language it came out in, grabs onto the treacherous slip of fabric to hold it in place — breaking your neck because you got tangled up in your own unmentionables would not be a dignified way to go — and climbs to the loft. At her back, Solas clears his throat, but blessedly doesn’t offer any pertinent commentary about his opinions of her ass. Once on the loft, Margo dresses hastily, not bothering with the niceties of bandages. She buttons her jacket over her tunic, and pads back down, bear foot. Solas, damn him, looks ridiculously presentable — if she didn’t know any better, she’d think he just stopped by for a lyrium potion. His expression is back to neutrally affable. He looks at her, and underneath the carefully crafted mask, a brief flash of something else — something at the messy edges between resignation and relief. But then, that’s gone too, and her sudden mood must be communicative, because she can almost feel his focus hone back to scalpel-sharp precision.

She hurries to the door. Solas follows suit, and she feels more than sees the way his gliding gait shifts towards a fighting stance.

Margo opens the door.

Nothing.

She looks down.

There is a large crumpled humanoid shape curled on itself in a fetal position on the threshold. And, of course, she can tell right away who it is — the collar is caked with snow and bristling with spiky clumps of fur, but is otherwise recognizable.

“Commander Cullen?” Margo asks, not one to neglect stating the obvious when the opportunity presents itself.

The shape doesn’t move.

What the hell? Is he drunk?

Except, the bad feeling revs up.

She crouches down and tries to feel for a heartbeat. The skin on the man’s neck is unpleasantly clammy to the touch, and cold as clay.

“I can’t feel a pulse,” Margo states, at this stage with more confusion than dread, but that’s about to change.

Solas simply steps over the Inquisition's Fallen General — rather unceremoniously, all things considered, but it does get him to the other side faster. He crouches down. His fingers palpate the neck, in a quick, expert gesture.

“We must get him inside. Now.”

Between the two of them, they hoist Cullen up, and drag him across the threshold — he is entirely unresponsive and, from Margo’s estimation, over two hundred pounds of dead weight.

They set him on the woven rug in the middle of the room, because, of course, this is not a space designed as an infirmary and there are simply no other viable options. The second their patient is on the floor, Solas begins to weave a healing spell, and Margo’s nose fills with the scent of ozone and the iodine tang of the ocean.

She grabs an elfroot potion from the shelf, crouches by the unconscious man, and lifts his head a bit so she can pour the liquid into his mouth. His jaws are clenched so tight she can’t actually pry them open. Most of the liquid simply dribbles down his chin and cheeks, soaking into the weave of the rug beneath him. She glances at Solas, and notices his grim expression.

The elf shakes his head. “He does not appear to be responding to the healing.”

“How?” Margo asks, urgently now because in the warmth of the room, she can smell the death on him, acrid, nauseatingly sweet, and almost metallic. “What would cause the spell to fail?”

“I am... no expert in healing, fenor. My abilities with this manner of magic are more blunt force than finesse. I cannot sense anything wrong with his body. It is shutting down on its own volition.”

Shit. Shit shit shit.

“Help me get the elfroot potion into him.”

With Solas’s assistance, she manages to pry Cullen’s jaw open enough to get at least some of the tonic into him. There is no swallowing reflex. Or coughing reflex for that matter. Nothing. The liquid simply spills from the corners of his lips, and dribbles down. Margo quickly tilts his head to the side to let the potion drain, lest they drown him in it. The man’s skin is taking on an alarmingly greyish hue.

They’re going to lose him, and it’ll be on her. If they hadn’t been fucking around and wasting precious time earlier…

“He has stopped breathing,” Solas states, his tone clipped.

Margo doesn’t hesitate. She tilts Cullen’s head back, lifting his chin away from his chest, compresses his nostrils, takes a deep breath and exhales into his mouth, hoping that enough air can get through. It’s hard work, her lungs straining with the effort. It is absolutely stupid luck that he isn’t wearing a chest plate. Instead, underneath the cloak, it’s a simple leather jerkin, and she can see, out of the corner of her eye, his chest expand.

She pauses after the first breath, and looks down. Not good.

Another breath, and she lifts up, flattens her palms against Cullen’s chest, and pushes, in rapid compressions, aiming for two per second. Counts to thirty, out loud. And then does another round of rescue breathing.

Wake up. Wake the fuck up. Come on, come on, come on.

Back to compressions again.

Distantly, she can feel Solas gather another spell. It’ll be no use if Cullen doesn’t breathe. If his heart doesn’t start back up. She knows from experience that Solas’s magic can reverse almost impossible damage, but if the body doesn’t struggle to live, perhaps the magic has nothing to latch on to? There’s no reviving Lazarus if Lazarus doesn’t want reviving.

Then, suddenly, Cullen’s body jerks, and he wheezes with his own, independent inhale.

Less than a second later Solas is pushing his magic into the supine shape, his face ethereal in the bluish glow — a specter carved of moonlight and marble.

Margo cradles the back of Cullen’s neck in the crook of her elbow, lifts his head up a little, and slowly pours the rest of the elfroot potion through his teeth. He sputters, but then, at length, she watches his throat work, and most of the liquid actually ends up inside, rather than everywhere else.

The commander groans, and then Margo can feel the beginning of a strange, spastic tremor. Oh no. Oh, no, no, _not good_ . She knows exactly what _this_ is.

And this is where, suddenly, horribly, things click into place. The nervous jitters that night when Adan and Minaeve administered their ill-fated test. The purple circles under his eyes that never seem to go away, and that she had attributed to overwork. The sudden cardiac arrest in a man clearly at the peak of health.

But of course, none of this would have arranged itself into anything more than ominous, but random sigils if it weren’t for Cullen’s uncanny resemblance to her brother. And if it hadn’t been for the smell. It’s a different smell, but there’s something about the acrid, almost chemical stench of the sweat — like burning rubber tires — that ties this night to another night, one that might as well be from another lifetime.

The night Jake overdosed.

Jake, her ridiculously talented, brilliant, always slightly unmoored brother, who picks up new skills and bad habits with equal ease, like a stray picks up burrs.

It had been a narrow thing then. He’d been clean for almost two years, but she still kept a Naloxone kit on hand, tucked away under her bed. It was stupid luck he’d been crashing at her place again for the week. It was stupid luck that the guy she’d gone on a date with had bored her within an inch of her life, and she had caught an Uber home straight after dinner, without staying for drinks — or more. It was stupid luck that it was the middle of Spring break, most of the kids had gone home or on vacation, or had already gotten most of the heavy drinking out of their system, and the little university town was down to half its population, so the roads were clear, and the ambulances were swift.

But this is not Earth. Not the quaint little artsy college town where she lived, and taught, and thought. And so, overlaying her assumptions onto this world might prove as fatal as not having a theory in the first place, even if the theory feels right.

Solas pours another wave of magic into the man who looks too much like her brother, and she can see sweat beading on the elf’s temples. His face is deceptively relaxed, but she recognizes the effort there, in the line of his shoulders, in the way the tendons in his neck cord with the effort in the spell’s dull glow.

Whatever Solas does, the impending seizure stops.

“Ok. Ok, now. What’s he using?” Margo hears herself say, watching the man of the floor settle, slowly, into much easier breathing. “I can’t tell if this is withdrawal, or if he’s ODying.”

The glow dwindles and Solas withdraws his hands, slumping back just a fraction, the movement almost imperceptible if her attention weren’t so permanently, insistently tangled up in reading him, like some arcane, demanding, mind-boggling text.

“Forgive me, I do not know this expression.” His voice sounds remote and a little abstract. “But I think I understand your question.” He looks at her over the body on the floor. “Commander Rutherford was a Templar. In order to dominate mages, their order uses lyrium to dampen magic.”

Of course, they do. Adan had told her as much — and she should have put two and two together. “You said he’s a Templar — do you think he still takes lyrium?” she asks. “And how does it work, exactly — the addiction, I mean? Is this a matter of diminishing returns? Can someone take too much lyrium?”

Solas meets her eyes and frowns, clearly mulling over her question. “If I were to speculate, I would assume that this state was brought on by absence, rather than excess.”

Margo nods again. “Because you felt that there was nothing to fix, yes?”

There’s a fleeting flash of something close to surprised pleasure in his eyes, but Margo doesn’t need to dwell on it for long to recognize it for what it is. She gets it. That slightly astonishing way in which they seem to occasionally tune into some shared wavelength, even when their words — and worlds — diverge.

There is a hint of movement from the commander. He groans, his eyelids fluttering. “Cassandra,” he rasps.

Margo looks at Solas.

“I will fetch the Seeker.” The elf straightens, and then, before she knows it, the door is closing behind him.

Margo takes off her jacket, balls it up, and sticks it under Cullen’s head in a makeshift pillow. He’s back to unresponsive, but it is closer to the unresponsiveness of sleep. Either way, he’s not going anywhere, and since his breathing is coming easy and deep, she trusts Solas’s healing abilities enough to work from the assumption that their patient is stable, at least for now. She rushes upstairs, pulls the tunic off, and makes quick work of the wrappings. No reason to give Cassandra the “wrong idea." With her luck, this will get twisted into some sordid narrative about her predecessor's sexual escapades again. Task finished, she gets dressed again and pulls on her boots. The whole operation doesn’t take more than a few minutes. She clambers down the ladder, clears the glasses and bottle of Antivan booze from the desk, and steps outside with the cast iron pot, bracing herself against the cold.

Tea. Tea is respectable. Professional, even. Who doesn’t like tea?

Back in the room, Margo finds a few embers still glowing in the chimney, and she gets the fire started under the pot, now packed with fresh snow.

Cullen stirs again, and she leaves the pot to its own devices, returning to her patient’s side. “Commander Rutherford, I can help you more effectively if I know what caused this.” Here is to hoping that she is managing to sound soothing, yet professional.

His eyes crack open, and his gaze, bleary at first, slowly focuses on her. “I…” — he croaks — “Andraste’s Mercy, what…” He tries to get himself into a sitting position, but she puts her hand on his shoulder and pushes down gently. Not that she could keep him supine if he really put his mind to the project of sitting up, but she’s hoping he’ll collaborate.

“Shh. Rest. You gave us a bit of a scare.” When in doubt, deploy euphemisms.

He groans again. “Who is _us_?” His voice quavers a little. Then, a tad more firmly, but still with a good deal of alarm. “Who else was here?” His tawny eyes start moving frantically around the room, but the effort must be straining something in his head, because he groans again, and gives up on the enterprise, letting his eyelids droop close.

“Stop trying to move around.” She gets up to check on the water. The snow has melted, but it’s not at simmering point yet.

“ _Who?_ ” There is an urgency to his question that’s just one shade away from desperation. "That's a direct order, agent. You would do well to answer."

Oh, it's threats now. She supposes she should take that as a good sign about Fallen General's future prospects. “Me. And Solas, who helped stabilize you.”

She hears a sigh. “So the apostate was here, was he?”

She turns around and looks at him. Cullen’s eyebrows are drawn together, and he is trying to maneuver himself into a sitting position again. At this point, it is clearly easier to help him than to explain why it’s not his most brilliant idea. He’ll probably keep trying no matter what.

Margo helps him ascend into the nearby chair. “The apostate happened to save your life,” she remarks, keeping her voice casual.

Cullen gives her a slightly chastised look, but then his expression changes from abashed to suspicious. “A rather unusual time to visit the apothecary, isn't it? Why was he here at this hour?”

“Picking up a potion,” Margo lies, without missing a beat.

“In the middle of the night?” Cullen is rubbing his chest as if something in there pains him, and Margo supposes that it probably would. She was giving the compressions her all, and, despite her smaller, narrower frame, her body is deceptively strong.

“Didn’t seem to stop you from coming by either, Commander.” Somehow, she manages to drain most of the venom from her tone. Tread carefully, and all that. “Unless you weren’t here for alchemical assistance?" Judging by his expression, he got the hint, so Margo allows her voice to soften. "There’s a reason Master Adan lets me sleep in here. We keep odd hours.” It’s a complete and utter improvisation — she’s pretty sure Adan let her sleep in the rafters because he felt sorry for her — but she’s not about to put up with 20 questions from a dude she just pulled from the brink of death.

That seems to give their fearless military leader pause. “Ah… Right. Apologies, agent. It is… none of my business.”

Margo returns to her pot. She waits, silent, for the water to boil and the silence stretches, heavy and uncomfortable. Finally, to give herself something to do, she assembles a tea from some available herbs — mostly on a hunch, based on what she has already used in other formulas. A handful of amrita vein, mainly for taste, a pinch of royal elfroot, and a few leaves of prophet’s laurel, which Auntie’s compendium mentions with great fondness. It just figures that something associated with a martyred woman would be assumed to have healing properties. Funny how things don’t change from one world to the next. She still nibbles on the dry leaf, just in case, before throwing some of its brethren into the pot. It has a kind of cooling sweetness to it, somewhere between licorice and clover blossoms. Margo nods to herself, satisfied.

She lets the herbs steep while she looks for something to hold the drink.

“Agent?”

“Apologies accepted, Commander,” she says, ladling the tea into a clay mug. She wipes the dripping liquid with her sleeve and hands Cullen the infusion. “Here. I’d imagine your throat feels… unpleasant. This may help.”

“Maker’s Breath, yes. That’s an understatement.” He takes a cautious sip, winces, and blows on the liquid. “Listen, about what you saw...”

Before he can offer an explanation, the door swings opens, and Cassandra storms in, with Solas bringing up the back.

“Cullen. What happened?”

Margo stifles a fit of grim hilarity. She’s not sure how many times this particular question has been uttered in this particular room in the last few hours. Maybe she can stencil it on a cushion later. Not that she knows how to stencil, but what’s one more skill to learn for a worthy cause?

Cullen takes a look at Solas, and his expression turns stony. “I… If you permit, Seeker, we will speak of this later. Agent.” He hesitates. “A-... Solas.” Margo is absolutely certain that Cullen was about to say “apostate,” but course-corrected at the last moment. “I owe you a debt I hope I will be able to repay some day.” He pushes himself off the chair with some difficulty. “I would like this incident not to leave the confines of this room, however. The Inquisition has enough worries as it is.”

“I would advise bedrest, Commander,” Solas says quietly, his utterance mostly directed at Cassandra. She gives him a slight nod.

Margo watches the two file out of the apothecary, Cullen leaning on Cassandra for support. The warrior woman turns around in the doorway, and inclines her head, first at Margo, and then at Solas. It could be a thank you. Or it could be a “we have an understanding, don’t make me break your kneecaps.” Margo decides it’s likely both.

The door closes.

Solas glides up to her. He smells like snow, a hint of ozone, and wood smoke. On a whim, she encircles his waist and leans into him, her ear against the hollow of his throat. His arms come around her in return, his chin resting against the crown of her head, and she closes her eyes with a soft exhale, listening to the sound of his heartbeat.

“I suspect this is not the last time you have to mediate the commander’s predicament,” he offers, tone cautious and a little tense.

Margo bobs her head up and down, unwilling to disengage. Just… ten more seconds. This feels peaceful. Not many things feel peaceful these days. “I sincerely hope it falls on Adan to do the mediating, because I’m out of my depth. This was a close call. We…” She takes a breath, lets it out, and steps out of his embrace. “We shouldn’t have gotten so carried away.”

His eyes are on hers then, and she notes the brief flash of anger, there, and then quickly hidden. “Do not embark on this route to self-recrimination, lethallan. The choices he and his order made are theirs alone, as are the consequences.” She can see the tension in the line of his shoulders, in the sudden straightness of his spine. Right. Nothing says massively pissed off like perfect posture.

She shakes her head. “Not everyone is given a choice, Solas. Sometimes, choices are made for us in advance of our own capacity to make them.”

And truth be told, she is not entirely comfortable with her own line of argument, but she’s trying to formulate something more general about compassion — even though her words about choice taste hackneyed.

“Every new action — every time you draw your next breath — is a choice.” His gaze is slightly unfocused, trained on some distant, inward horizon.

“You’re oversimplifying again.”

Solas frowns. He looks like he’s about to take a step forward, but catches himself. “If the Templar Order were to discover what you are — _who_ you are — they would not hesitate to do whatever they considered necessary to extract answers from you about matters they cannot possibly comprehend. It would likely end in your death.” He pauses. “Save your succor for other causes, fenor.”

“No love lost between you two, I take it?” Margo chuckles, even if Solas’s words send ice down her spine.

He frowns slightly. “I do not believe Cullen to be a bad man, whatever this might mean. But I am an apostate and an elf. Within the configuration of this world, we are natural enemies, as wolves are to sheep. It is a simple fact of nature.”

She sighs. “It’s not a fact of nature, it’s an artefact of your world’s fucked up politics.” She briefly considers the fact that she’s not at all sure which is the wolf and which is the sheep, but decides it’s probably better not to mention that. “Also, do you know the one about the wolf, the sheep, and the cabbage?”

He quirks an eyebrow at her. “Why do I have the feeling that this will be terribly indecent?”

Margo narrows her eyes. “Apparently, because you have a one-track mind. It’s actually a math riddle. A logical problem we give children to solve. I suppose I could try to make it indecent for you if you like…” She offers him a conspiratorial smile.

“Ah.” His lips quirk. “Then forgive me, ma’nas. It seems that one’s interpretations simply display the measure of one’s own wickedness.”

And at that moment, with the barely contained little smirk, he looks so entirely impish — like a folkloric trickster archetype from some Medieval woodcut — that Margo finds herself chuckling, despite the insanity of the night.

“Something amuses you, fenor?”

“You really are a special kind of bad news,” she grins.

That, somehow, launches him straight into melancholy. Margo sighs. Mercurial to the marrow of his bones, as it appears.

“We can save this debate for another night. There is the other matter of Imshael. I am having increasing difficulty joining you in the Fade — I recognize your presence, but you remain out of reach.”

Margo nods. She had begun to suspect as much. And come to think of it, weren’t most of the times that she did manage to find Solas in the Fade mediated by Baba? She wonders what this could mean.

“But you clearly have a facility with shaping the Fade, at least to some degree. It makes me wonder whether…” He stops. Looks at her as if he’s trying to peer inside, and then just shakes his head. “Until we are able to identify the cause of your elusiveness, you must use the skills you do possess to keep yourself safe. And if that fails, you may make use of certain plants to keep yourself from the Dreaming.”

Margo tries to think. She had suspected there are alchemical ways to control one’s connection to the Fade, but something about cutting herself off entirely feels… wrong. Or, rather, wasteful. “I’d rather experiment a bit before I resort to the more radical options.”

The elf gives her a long look. “Then be careful. I will continue to try to find you and offer guidance, if I am able.”

Margo nods, and rubs her eyes, which sting from lack of sleep and nervous exhaustion.

“We have an hour or so before first chant,” Solas remarks, tone carefully neutral. “I can offer you a Fadeless sleep if you wish.”

Margo tries to read his expression but gets nothing. The elf would be a menace at poker if he put his mind to it. “Would it require of you to stay awake?” she asks, mimicking the studiedly neutral tone.

He nods.

“Perhaps another time. Get some rest.”

He gives her a small, formal bow. “Strive to do the same.”

And for about an entire minute after the door closes behind him, Margo even manages to stay convinced that her refusal is just a matter of altruistic consideration. Nothing to do with her not trusting herself to actually sleep. Nope. Nothing like that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by a public service announcement. Stay away from addictive magical minerals. They're not good for you. Find some other way to oppress mages.
> 
> Next up: military maneuvers, more Fade stuff, and new alchemical experiments.


	30. Among Strangers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the team prepares for battle, and Margo expands her arsenal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minimal edits for this one, but that's how it goes.

" _Ougfan’sluzzil_ ," the Avvar repeats, his pale, callused fingers carefully smoothing out the piece of gray lichen to its full width. He peels off a strip and hands it to Margo. “You must taste, lowlander.”

Margo nods dejectedly. By this point, she knows better than to protest. She'd have more luck arguing with a wall than with the damn Avvar. She pops the strip of lichen into her mouth and chews. At first, it's just a tingle on her tongue. And then her entire mouth fills with an unpleasant itchy sensation. The lichen manages to be dry and slimy all at once, to irritate and to numb. Also, it tastes a little like what happens when you combine toothpaste with orange juice.

“This is the male. The female is red. _Ougfan’sloz_.”

“Do the names have meaning?” Margo asks, trying to keep her face neutral despite the awful things happening to her palate.

Amund harrumphs in exasperation. “Of course names have meaning, lowlander.” He points to the blue lichen. “Veil Key.”

“And the other one? The _sloz_?”

“Veil Lock.”

She spits the lichen out surreptitiously, and looks to the others. Iron Bull is by the campfire, sharpening a claymore that’s about the same height as Margo herself, and about half the width, the worn whetstone scraping rhythmically against the metal. On the other side, Dorian — a late, surprise addition to their team — is lounging lazily on a bedroll, leafing through Master Taigan’s alchemy tome which he pilfered, rather unceremoniously, from her backpack. Sera’s up in a tree above them, her presence announced by occasional pieces of bark fluttering down into Margo’s hair.

Harding and the other addition to their team, who goes by Asher (though being one of Leliana’s little birds the name is probably a nom de plume, or more likely a nom de guerre) are gone, scouting for dinner. If some crusty ethnographic tome titled “Peoples of Thedas” exists in some dusty corner of an Orlesian library, Margo suspects that Asher’s likeness would be drawn next to the “Elves” entry. If ever there were an ur-elf. The man takes Sera’s derogatory qualifier of “elfy elf” and gives it a run for its money. He is pale, with long ash-colored hair, swept back to reveal a sharp widow’s peak, a tall forehead, a long, chiseled, aristocratic face. His eyes are the obligatory shade of frosty blue. And from the brief exchanges she’s had with him, he is an arrogant, abrasive ass. Not a charming arrogant ass, either. Not the kind of arrogant ass that you secretly suspect might turn into the object of affection of some young (but spunky) ingenue in a torrid — but tasteful — romance novel (possibly authored by Varric). Oh no. Just your plain, run of the mill, pompous shitweed with a huge chip on his shoulder.

Margo privately rechristens him as The Specimen.

They get into an altercation on the very first night they’re in the field. Margo, in charge of preparing and stockpiling utterly absurd amounts of accelerant in anticipation of attacking a Templar camp, proceeds with the task with initial enthusiasm, quickly dampened by the sheer volume of required labor. The attack on the encampment is meant to be coordinated to the other team’s parallel offensive against the mages. The other patrol contains Blackwall, Solas, Vivienne, Varric, Cassandra, and Evie, and, in theory at least, the Herald-wielding team is strolling through the refugee settlement right about now, making a fuss of taking out the mages holed up in the mountains to the north, and impressing everyone with the clout of the Inquisition’s willingness to do something about the whole sordid civil war mess. From there, their contingent, minus Evie and Cassandra, will soften enemy troops, then everyone will regroup and pick off the stragglers.

At least, that's the theory.

It’s a fine balance to strike, and Margo mulls over their predicament — they can’t exclude Evie altogether because not everyone in the ‘Inner Circle’ is in the know, and Cassandra is adamant about keeping it that way.

Mages (hopefully) subdued, they will stroll back victorious through the refugee encampment, rally support, patch up the wounded, and send whoever is in fighting shape — plus Evie and Cassandra, the inseparable duo — to rejoin the Templar offensive. The whole plan hinges on the assumption that Cassandra will be able to dampen Evie’s unfortunate side-effects with "friendly fire," unobtrusively using her Seeker abilities against the Herald and her vortex of doom.

That first night, with complicated war maneuvers on her mind, Margo is in the middle of her work, elbows deep in greasy blood lotus extract, when Asher strolls up and “accidentally” knocks over the pot, spilling its hard-earned contents on the lush grass.

“Oh, dear me,” he trails. “How very clumsy.”

Margo looks at him in mild shock.

“But I suppose accidents happen, don’t they? Like getting your whole patrol slaughtered because you’re polishing some Vint’s knob,” he muses, with the sort of carefully calculated casualness intended to kill on impact. “Didn’t think the task would be so absorbing. How does it feel to be a traitor to your own people?” he adds, just in case Margo was still confused about his feelings on the subject.

She’s had snide remarks flung at her before, and she’s certainly had her share of threats from Torquemada. Not to mention Charter’s terrifying deal. But this… this is something new. 

“Is there a problem?” Of all of the people to jump to her defense, Dorian is perhaps the biggest surprise, in part because she does have a prior, longer relationship with all the others. But it’s Dorian who swoops in first, looking dapper and entirely nonchalant, with a quiet arrogance that makes even Asher come across as a snot-nosed amateur. “I’m sorry. I overheard ‘Vints’ knobs’ being discussed. I thought it proper that I should volunteer my opinion, being the proud possessor of one of those.” He fixes Asher with a derisive look. “If you are so very interested in the matter of their polishing, there is certainly some fine scholarship on the subject I would be happy to point you to. You do read, yes? Come to think of it, I am certain I could find you one with pictures. Simple pictures. Very descriptive and all that.”

Asher sneers. “Not going to offer a demonstration yourself? I bet our aspiring alchemist is more than willing to give it a go.”

“I haven’t heard her volunteer. If anything, you seem to be the one with the keen interest in the topic.”

“As if I’d get anywhere near you filthy Tevinter scum,” Asher grinds out.

“Ugh.” Sera drops silently from her arboreal perch, the unconcealed disgust in her voice so thick Margo wonders if it might be harvested for poisoning arrows. “Asher here is what gives the rest of us a bad name. ‘Traitor to your people’. Who friggin' says that with a serious face? Pish.”

“Can’t see the appeal of fucking the enemy every once in a while?”

That’s The Iron Bull and, as always, Margo’s not at all sure who the casual question is addressed to, exactly. The Ben Hassrath is mostly quiet, except for the occasional remark that he tosses into the conversation like one might toss a stone down a well — to see what echoes back.

The less than amiable interaction on that first evening sets the tone, such that almost every conversation thereafter eventually devolves into barbs. Mostly, it’s politics, or juvenile snipes, but with a generous helping of lewdness, primarily traded between Dorian and the Qunari. Apparently, aggressive sexual innuendo is just another tool in the Ben Hassrath’s arsenal of intimidation tactics, and Margo feels a little sorry for Dorian for drawing it — though she also has the distinct impression that the mage is actually provoking Bull on purpose. 

Sera and Asher mostly do an admirable job of trying to outsneer each other.

Harding tries to moderate them all at first, but then she gives up and keeps things strictly to business. And the Avvar looks on in profound indifference, until, by day two, even he is so fed up with the constant snarling that he decides to make virtue of necessity, and appoints himself Margo’s instructor.

Not that Margo is complaining. Well, not exactly. Though the transition feels like it involves toggling between fire and frying pan. The augur — the term he uses to identify himself, and which Margo translates as "ritual specialist of the seer variety" — is a terse and demanding teacher, and his primary mode of engagement is some lugubrious mixture of impatience and intransigence. Also, he makes her taste everything. Including, at one point, the desiccated excrements of some rodent with an unpronounceable name. Compared to that, the lichen might as well pass for dessert.

On the upside, the Avvar materia medica extends well beyond whatever she’s encountered in the compendia so far. Lichen, mosses, a whole slew of mushrooms, and not just ‘some fungus.’ Hardy plants that grow high in the mountains, on rocks, in crevices, under the snow. Stubborn unobtrusive things that cling to life, quietly.

Also, insects, grubs, worms, and other creepy crawlies. And, yes, a whole collection of miscellaneous droppings.

Margo gives the lichen a disgusted look.

“So, you use it to control your dreams?”

The Avvar nods. “That too. That’s not why I’ve had you collect it.” He points his chin towards the new batch of blood lotus extract. “Add it.”

“What is it going to do?” Margo asks suspiciously. She’s not about to spoil her hard work with some unknown ingredient.

“Hard to know in advance. Gods are different, so plants are different.”

Margo frowns. It is true that there can be wide variation between individual plants of the same species, and she wonders whether the Avvar explain this as a matter of variation between spirits. “Are specific gods in charge of specific places in the landscape?” 

The Avvar gives her an annoyed look. “Your rulers are in charge of different territories, are they not?”

“Except under the Qun,” Dorian volunteers from his bedroll, with a quick look at the Qunari. “All are equal under the Qun, are they not? Amund, if Thedas were conquered by the Qunari, would this logically lead to greater homogeneity among plant life too?”

“There’s still variation under the Qun, Dorian,” The Bull inserts, sounding vaguely offended. “Asit tal-eb. Everything has its nature. We’re just better at recognizing it. It’s a matter of planned organization. More efficient that way.”

Dorian, apparently, was just waiting for such an opening. “And I suppose that since my nature is to be a mage, you would have me chained and gagged, just on that basis. No questions asked. No accounting for individual variations. How artfully simple!”

“I’d buy you dinner first,” Bull rumbles with the trace of a chuckle, and Margo hears the Tevinter swear under his breath.

There is a rustle of leaves. Harding and Asher emerge, dead rabbits in tow. A crow is perched on Harding’s shoulder.

“Any news?” Sera pipes up from her tree.

Harding nods and plops the future dinner down by the fire. “They’re in position. They’ll attack at night. Let’s hope the mages keep a regular schedule.”

The rest of the evening is occupied with dinner and very little conversation.

Margo is too nervous to fall asleep right away, so she volunteers to take the first watch. She spends the time drawing the new additions to her pharmacopeia in her journal. The others settle into their bedrolls, but the Augur stays by the cauldron, presumably watching the mixture.

After the snoring begins in earnest, Margo turns to the Avvar. “Amund? Can I use ougfan’sloz to cut myself off from the dreaming?” She keeps her voice quiet. 

He meditates on her question before answering. “You could. But why would you want to do that, outworlder?”

“I sometimes have unwanted visitors.”

It's hard to say with the mask, but something about the set of his jaw suggests a more encompassing frown. In any event, when he speaks, his tone is dry. “I told you to stop calling on the wishmonger god. I can smell him on you. This will lead you nowhere good.”

Margo swallows the rising terror. “What does it smell like?” she asks, because that's the first thought that pops into her mind and it has the benefit of distracting her from the desire to run away screaming.

“Like ash and ancient bones.”

Well, better than yak turds. There's that.

“I'm not doing it intentionally.”

The Avvar shrugs. “That is between you and the wishmonger. You wish. And he comes. I have told you already. The world is all that is the case.”

Margo sighs. All the Avvar needs is subject object verb syntax and some very expressive pointy ears. And maybe a lightsaber. “Very well. How do I disinvite him? Can that be done?”

“Stop wishing.”

Helpful as ever.

“Any other alternatives?”

He gives her a long look. “How do you avoid unwanted visitors? You build a house. You put a door. And you hang a lock on it.”

Margo frowns. “So… I make a sanctuary.”

He nods. And then he reaches into a satchel and extracts another lichen. “Before you can make a lock, you need a key.” He hands her the crumpled strip of symbiotic organism. “Don’t spit it out this time.”

***

The desire to look for Solas in the Fade — and to assure herself that he and the others are alive — is almost physical, like an itch in her bones. Margo scolds herself for the irrationality of it. If everything is going to plan, the last thing he should be doing is sleeping. She needs to cut this shit out. She’s a grown woman. This — whatever the hell it is — is entirely undignified.

When she finally drifts off, she doesn’t enter the Fade. She’s violently plunged into it, dragged under by its rip currents. But once there, the experience is different. She is greeted by a rudimentary landscape: two planes, differentiated by shades of sepia, one above, and one below. No features break the monotony, and it feels like she is caught in some kind of geometry exercise, sandwiched between two instances of abstract space.

She has no idea how to build a ‘house’ — or why anyone would want to do that in this place — but the concept of sanctuary keeps tugging at her, the idea there already, half-formed, waiting for its share of attention.

She doesn’t know how to build.

But she knows how to grow things.

She closes her eyes and pours emotions into the image, carved out of memories as much as from the feelings that wrap around them, a sense of yearning and loss, a nostalgia that would be maudling if it weren’t tinged with a deep sense of gratitude for the fact that this place exists, somewhere. She sees it in her mind’s eye first. The embankment, dotted with the purple and yellow blossoms of malempyrum, slopes gently towards the sluggish waters of the ancient river. A soft breeze catches in the branches of the weeping willow. The hills on the other bank stretch in purple shadows across the shimmering surface. The sun has set, and the sky is turning a piercing cerulean. It smells of summer grasses and warm earth, of green living things cooling off and furling into sleep for the night.

Further up the embankment, baba’s ashes are scattered under the aspen tree. Downstream, in the little cemetery by the medieval church, her parents’ graves. But in between, in the calm crook of the river, she and Jake spent countless summers lazing in the grass and trapping frogs. Bathing and fishing and swinging from the willow’s branches and dropping into the water with terrified and triumphant ululations. Here, she shared kisses and pilfered apples with Ivan, when it was just becoming clear that there was more to them than two sooty-footed kids growing up together in a forgotten village. Here, she brought Lily as a baby, to introduce her to the place where the roots extend beneath the earth, quiet and deep.

She opens her eyes under a cerulean sky.

The world is all that is the case.

***

The next day starts off about as well as you might expect, but at least Margo got some rest. Until, that is, she is woken up by a not particularly playful kick to the ribs from Asher. “Get up. Harding wants you on artificer duty.”

Margo doesn’t dignify him with the logical question that might clarify what an artificer is. She’s sure Harding will explain soon enough, and the less she interacts with the Specimen, the better off she’ll be.

Bull and Sera are still asleep, snoring. The Avvar might be sleeping –- he is sitting in some kind of meditative trance, chin resting on his chest. He appears otherwise unresponsive. Dorian is nowhere in sight, and Margo concludes that he scampered off for toileting purposes.

“You need a minute?” Harding asks her. The dwarva crouching by the fire looks as fresh-faced and well-rested as if she just returned from a week-long spa vacation. Margo represses a jolt of envy.

She nods and wanders off to the bushes. Business completed, she returns to the campfire.

Harding already has an elaborate diagram sketched out in the dust. She adds details with the tip of a sharpened stick.

“Any news?” 

Harding nods. “Crow arrived before dawn. The mages are taken care of.”

“How did our side do?”

The scout shrugs, something tense to the set of her shoulders. “Not too bad. Everyone’s alive.”

Margo exhales, not realizing until after that she’d been holding her breath. “Any injured?”

“The Warden and the Seeker took a beating, but nothing too bad. The Herald is unscathed. The mages are mostly fine, some scrapes and bruises. The Orlesian had some kind of wardrobe accident, though that might be Tethas's embellishments. Our resident Professional Bullshitter made it out alive too. He was the one who sent the message.”

Margo feels her eyebrows shoot up in surprise at this shockingly positive news. It would appear that Cassandra’s plan actually worked. And for the first time in what feels like ages, she allows herself to feel cautiously optimistic. Maybe they’re not all going to hell in a handbasket, after all. Wouldn’t that be something.

“So what’s our next steps?”

Harding taps her diagram. “They will want to rest and resupply in the settlement. I’m going to guess they’ll be here by the evening. We’ll attack before first light tomorrow.”

Margo nods. It seems reasonable.“Is the whole contingent coming along?” 

Harding shakes her head. “Vivienne and Varric will stay behind in the village.”

Margo considers the combination, and the strategy behind it. “Vivienne to reinstate trust in law-abiding mages, and Varric to spin stories.”

Harding chuckles. “Yup. Vivienne will terrorize any skeptics into submission with her impeccable manners and Varric will lie his ass off.”

“So what’s our task? I have the impression you’re not intent on waiting for the cavalry.”

Harding considers the diagram with a pensive expression. “We’ll wait. But in the meantime, we’re going to set a snare.”

***

The strategy is delightfully simple. There is only one route to access the Templar camp, and it is open and uphill, putting any attacking group at a severe disadvantage. The camp is, in fact, naturally fortified, blocked off by steep cliffs on one side, and a ravine on the other. What the Templars didn’t account for is an attack from above. 

It is still dark when the two Inquisition scouts, complete with ugly green hoods, materialize from the shadows with a large crate in tow. The crate, as it turns out, is filled with crude clay pots. From there, the work is finicky and monotonous, but it has the merit of being straight-forward. Margo fills each pot with the accelerant mixture she’s been collecting in a specially-dedicated barrel. Harding helps her seal the pots with cloth and beeswax, and Margo outfits each one with a wick. The final results look like the illegitimate spawn of a pot for pickling kimchi and a molotov cocktail.

She sets her batch of lichen-tainted stuff aside. The mixture has turned overnight into a sticky black ooze vaguely reminiscent of tar, but with more personality. It jiggles uninvitingly when moved. Whatever it is, she is not using it for making bombs before testing it for its properties. The last thing anyone needs is for the vaguely evil looking brew to start behaving in inappropriate ways instead of being a good sport and exploding. 

Margo stares at the pots because suddenly, in the unwelcome pause between actions, a thought creeps in. A very unpleasant thought. She is making bombs. Bombs, Karl. Intended to kill, or at least seriously damage people, the more the merrier. Living breathing human beings.

She looks around, suddenly feeling helpless, lost, and profoundly, monumentally alone. But there is no one to turn to. Every single one of the others is a killer. Safe, perhaps, for Dorian, but she can’t know for certain.

And, of course, so is she.

She doesn’t have the luxury of showing even a trace of ambivalence without endangering herself and her cover. Rich and layered as Maile’s reputation was, it isn’t one that includes any compunctions about the ethics of her chosen path.

Margo is startled out of her bleak reverie by a light touch on her shoulder. The Avvar, no longer in his meditative trance, has moved silently to her side.

“You may be the arrow, outsider. You may even be the bow. But you are not the hand that pulls the string. If you fly, it is because such is the will of the gods.”

Margo shakes her head in refusal. “A convenient philosophy. But I can’t absolve myself of responsibility, Amund.”

This, somehow, strikes the Avvar as hilarious, because he suddenly lets out a loud guffaw and smacks his thigh. The noise startles Sera and Iron Bull awake.

“You have a prideful streak, lowlander. Those men we will attack have made their choice, as is pleasing to their gods.”

“But what about randomness?” Margo pleads, frustration creeping into her tone. “Don't you think your model is too tidy? You can't possibly think that everyone deserves what they get. What if someone comes into your house with a weapon while you’re sleeping? Does it mean that this is what your gods willed too?”

The Avvar’s lips purse into a smile. “If someone comes into my house to kill me in my sleep, lowlander, I will simply not be there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you because the gods willed it.
> 
> Next up: Reunions, skirmishes, and more trouble on the horizon.
> 
> Note: In case you're wondering about linguistics, I am deriving the Avvar dialect from Old High German.


	31. Crow Bait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fade visits, battle preparations, and unreliable mail service.

When evening meal comes and goes the next day, and the others still haven’t manifested — or sent a message — a lively debate breaks out in their group over what to do next. The Iron Bull, Asher, and Sera advocate for continuing with the planned attack. Harding vacillates, torn between caution and fear that the element of surprise would be lost the longer they linger in one place. Dorian remains neutral. Margo and Amund are in favor of delaying. Amund is adamant. Margo, more diplomatic.

“Are you blind to the signs, Child of the Mountain?” Amund asks the Dwarven scout, after it becomes clear the pendulum is swinging towards the more immediately aggressive strategy. “Do you not see the carrion crows flying a circle over the ridge?”

Harding, clearly unsure why the augur has selected her as the designated decision-maker, adopts a defensive stance. “First off, I am a surface dwarf, Amund. And second, who’s to say the birds are predicting a bad outcome for us? For all we know, the Templars are butchering a carcass for their dinner, and they’re circling for the left-overs.”

Amund shakes his head in dismay. “The Mountain is in the bone. You can no more renounce its bowels than I can renounce its spine. And carrion crows do not circle for a butchered carcass. They circle because they sense a battle approaching.”

“How can you tell their circling is a bad omen?” The Iron Bull queries, genuine curiosity in his voice.

“The direction.”

They dismiss his warning with bluster and grumblings about superstition, so Margo, who feels an increasing sense of unease prickle her spine, throws her voice in with the Avvar. “Do the advantages of attacking now truly outweigh the benefits of a larger contingent?” Her eyes flick between the Iron Bull and Harding, because, in her estimation, the two are really the main strategists of the group.

“Our odds become worse the longer we stay.” Harding pushes a stray ember back into the campfire with the tip of her boot. “Attacking during the day would be much more costly, even with greater numbers, and if we linger until tomorrow night, we might have reinforcements to deal with. With the mages out of the picture, there is a chance the other patrols will rally at their base camp to work out their next move.”

“I say we take the fight to them tonight, as planned.” The Iron Bull shifts his claymore, planting it between his thighs, giant hands flexing on the haft. “What’s the point of sitting on our asses? We have a good mix of melee, stealth and long range as it stands.” He looks at Amund. “That warhammer of yours could use some exercise. Not good keeping a weapon bloodless for too long.”

Amund grunts noncommittally.

The Qunari surveys them, his good eye catching the crimson glow of the flames. “Amund, Asher and I can rappel down the side of the ravine to that platform over the stream. Much easier to do at night. Dorian, Harding and Sera will provide cover fire from the top of the cliff. Blondie — can you use the bombs to hem in the Templars before you join us?”

Margo considers this. “You want me to cut them off from retreating downhill?” By this point, she’s got Harding’s dust map of the camp memorized. She meets Bull’s gaze over the flames. “Keep in mind that you will be hemmed in as well.”

He nods. “That’s the idea.”

“It’s risky,” Harding volunteers, but Margo notices that the scout's body language has shifted, a kind of jittery excitement creeping into her movements. “But it’s what we had planned to do if the Herald had made it to the rendezvous point on time anyway. I say a stealthy attack still gives us a much better shot than a frontal assault during the day. I hate to waste another night.”

"Take them out while they're sleeping,” Sera pipes up. “Oh, you were having a snooze? Blimey! Arrow to your face!” The elf laughs uproariously at this. Bull rumbles a chuckle. 

Dorian shakes his head in consternation. “Much as I hate to be the voice of cautious dissent, it seems to me that we have little room for mistakes, considering we lack a trained healer in the group,” he offers. “My expertise is… elsewhere.”

“We have an alchemist. How’s our health potion supply?” Bull asks, his eye on Margo.

She shrugs. “It’s adequate. But I agree with Dorian. If we decide to do this, I would advise against spectacular heroics.” She rubs her face, trying to trace the "bad feeling" to its source. Maybe this is the wisest course of action after all. Her worry for the others might be coloring her judgement of their current strategy.

“So now, you’re the cautious one. Where was that caution at the Storm Coast, hmm?” Asher looks like he’s itching for a fight, and doesn’t much care who the fight is with.

“We still don't know what happened to your other team,” Amund suddenly inserts, his deep voice slicing through the atmosphere of rising battle rage.

Margo fidgets uncomfortably. That is, indeed, a problem.

“And sitting here with our thumbs up our asses is gonna answer that how?” Sera plucks an arrow from her quiver, and starts twirling it around like some perversely pointy baton. “Maybe they're all drunk and having a group bang in a tavern somewhere to celebrate. If they show, they can join the fun. Hey! We can leave them a note!” Her voice drops into an imitation of male efficiency suspiciously reminiscent of The Iron Bull. ‘Off to kill some Templars. Sorry we missed you.’”

Margo makes a concerted effort to scrub Sera’s evocative image of a "group bang" from her mind, and considers their options. There is, of course, the other side of the scales to consider: namely, Evie and her vortex of doom. If she arrives, they would have another risk factor to contend with. But then, this brings her to the politics of appearances that underlie Cassandra’s plan.

“Shouldn’t the Herald be seen neutralizing the Templars?”

The Bull graces her with a speculative look, and Margo squirms under the scrutiny.

“Seen by whom, Blondie? We’re in the middle of nowhere. No settlements around. Unless Cassandra was planning to leave a strategic witness… Otherwise, it’s whatever we say happened.”

Margo has no retort to that. The conversation bounces around for a few more turns, but she has the distinct feeling that the matter is settled before they run out of words.

***

As they begin preparations, Amund nods at her, and Margo follows him to the outer perimeter of the camp.

“This is a bad idea, Outworlder,” the Avvar offers, his tone impassive. “Watch the birds.” 

She follows his gaze to where a flock of crows flies in a gliding circle, stark black shadows against the gloaming.

“What do your signs tell you, Amund?”

“That death comes this way.” His tone is conversational, on the edge of indifferent.

Margo hesitates. “But for whom?” she finally asks. “Maybe it’s death for the Templars?”

The Augur shrugs. “Your Templars aren’t the ones querying the Lady of the Sky. I am.” He pauses. “Death isn’t picky.”

Margo considers his statement. From what she can tell, this is another Avvar meditation on luck, fate, and signs. Slowly, a kind of tentative understanding materializes, and she decides to test her theory. “So, you’re saying that because you’re the one asking about the outcome, you are being given a specific answer — so the birds aren’t a sign to just anyone, they are a sign to you?”

Amund nods. “That they are. A man asks a question of another man in a room full of people. To whom is the answer given? To the room full of people? Or to the one who asked?”

So this is an issue of addressee. “I suppose it depends on the question. Sometimes we ask for the benefit of others.”   
  
Amund shakes his head, his dark eyes inscrutable. “There is no ‘benefit’. Your question is your question. The same words in someone else’s mouth are theirs, not yours. An answer cannot be collectivized, Outworlder.”

Margo sighs. She would love to delve into this more deeply, to tease apart the Avvar’s worldview. But there is no time, at least not now. They have more pressing matters than discussing cosmology. “All right. What should we do?”

The Avvar watches the birds for what feels like an eternity. Finally, his chest lifts in a sigh. “Your last potion. The one with ougfan’sluzzil. Coat your daggers with it. You must fight.” He pauses. “Who knows. You might yet tip the scales.”

“It’s not an explosive, is it?” Margo asks, wondering not for the first time about the ways in which this world’s alchemy lends radically versatile results with what seems like comparatively little processing.

“No.” The Avvar says, but, predictably, he fails to elaborate.

“Is the formula a secret?” she asks. Why is Amund so tight-lipped about it?

After a long pause, he shakes his head. When he finally responds, there is a trace of humor in his voice. “It is a gamble, Outworlder. A bit like you.”

Before she rejoins the others in their preparations, the Avvar stops her, his heavy hand landing on her shoulder and practically rooting her in place with its weight. “You have a bit of time before we must depart. Consider sleep.”

An incredulous laugh escapes her at the suggestion. “You think this is a good time for a nap, Amund?”

Under the metal glint of the mask, his eyes crinkle at the corners, but she cannot tell whether it is a smile, or a skeptical squint. Whatever the expression, it never reaches the bottom of his face. “Speak to your… friend, if you can. We must know what happened to your other people. And why the birds no longer bring the words.”

Margo frowns, trying to infer how much Amund knows about her occasional ability to communicate with Solas. The augur’s speech is like an imperfect translation, and she is unsure of whether this is a linguistic problem — that he is, in fact, translating in his head from whatever dialect is the Avvar’s native tongue — or if it is a translation of a more spiritual sort.

“Provided I can even fall asleep. And provided my ‘friend’ is asleep as well,” Margo objects. “That’s a lot of conjecture.”

Amund lifts his head, his eyes tracing the patterns of feathery clouds in the evening sky. He seems absorbed in some silent calculation.

“Now would be a good time to try,” he finally offers.

And so, with a small piece of the damnable lichen in her hand, Margo settles under a tree at the periphery of the camp, folding her body into an imitation of the Avvar’s meditative pose. She contemplates the ougfan’sluzzil. “One pill makes you larger, one pill makes you small,” she hums. Right. Forget the lightsaber. What the Avvar really needs is a hookah and a giant mushroom to sit on.

She pops the lichen into her mouth and chews with grim determination. And then she closes her eyes, and allows for her breathing to deepen.

***

She’s back to the abstract space sandwich, with nothing there but sepia-colored dust. The plane that passes for the sky has a slight green tinge, but nothing like the blazing lime green of the Breach. At least, there are no visitors when she arrives.

She closes her eyes within the dream, and she tries to reach with that part of herself that, until not so long ago, she had no idea was there. “Solas.”

Nothing happens whatsoever. Absolutely nothing. The abstract sandwich remains woefully unimpressed with her efforts.

This is a profound waste of time. She can’t control these Fade calls any more than she can control the weather.

“Solas,” she tries again, attempting to recollect that sense of him, the complicated weave of his essence. She opens her eyes. This time, somewhere far off in the distance, she spots a lonely figure.

Of course, it could be anyone — from where she stands, it is not much more than a humanoid outline, a shimmering mirage against the sepia tint. It could be the Cosmic Asshole, for all she knows, and then she’s truly fucked, because something about this way of rendering the Fade feels like a secret, like one little bit of advantage she might have over the “Choice Spirit.” But for lack of a better alternative, she begins moving towards the lone visitor, first at a casual pace, then picking up speed, and, finally, settling into a light jog.

Closer now, she sees the figure turn to her, the familiar silhouette thinned by the distance into something spectral.

Now, the question is whether it is the right Solas. He seems to hesitate for a few seconds, and then he begins to move briskly in her direction, except it doesn’t look like he’s walking. Instead, it is as if the ground layer is moving past him.

When they finally come face to face, Margo releases her breath. It is, most certainly, Solas. “Where the hell are you?” she demands, the tension over his and the others’ unexplained absence erupting into a profound failure at composure, let alone diplomacy.

Before she can badger him with more outraged demands for an explanation, the elf is upon her. His hands tangle roughly in her hair. She squeaks in surprise as he tilts her head back, his eyes searching her face for an answer that doesn't shape itself through words. A huff of mute frustrations escapes him, and then his lips are on hers. The kiss is urgent and demanding, as if he is trying to get across whatever borders their Fade-rendered bodies allow. 

He tastes of dust and thunder. 

Margo makes a muffled little noise that might have started as a question, but then quickly turns into plain old need. His hands feel like they’re everywhere at once — in her hair, on her shoulders, tracing the line of her waist, and then settling on her ass and pulling her pelvis flush against him. 

And then, as if suddenly recalling himself, he stumbles back, letting his arms drop to his sides, startled anguish passing over his features before his habitual neutral mask snaps into place. For the briefest of moments, he looks like he’s tempted to reach for her again, as if to ascertain himself that she is really there, but then he stops himself mid-gesture and takes another deliberate step backward, the sudden distance between them like a raised shield.

“I... forget myself. I apologize.” He shakes his head, in consternation or in denial — Margo is not sure which.

“Solas?" Her lips still tingle from their kiss. "What is going on?”

Another indeterminate head shake. “It would appear that you are real after all,” he finally comments, his voice low and rough. "And alive." 

Margo tries to read his features, but the expression is too complex to parse. It puts her in mind of a patient who had received a dire diagnosis, only to have it suddenly revoked as a lab error. She frowns, trying to understand why he would have questioned her reality.

Solas, in the meantime, starts pacing.

“What made you think I wasn’t?” she asks cautiously.

He whirls towards her, his bare heels kicking up little clouds of dust that hang in suspension, settling too slowly. The trace of a future movement erodes into willed immobility. “You were gone." He makes a slicing motion with his hand, as if to indicate the finality of such an absence. "No sign of you in the Fade. There were no memories, no lingering traces. Nothing at all. As if you had never existed.” He starts to pace again, an odd abruptness to his movements in eerie contrast to his usual gliding grace. He gestures as he talks. “At first, I had told myself that you were avoiding sleep, but such an assumption seemed unlikely. Even in wakefulness the Fade retains an imprint — memories, emotions, attachments. Desires. One is never fully disconnected, unless Tranquil or dead. Under normal circumstances, I can sense your existence, regardless of whether I can reach you. I had... come to expect the reassurance it offers. Until it was gone.”

“Something felt different this time?”

Solas nods, his eyes locking with hers. Her face must be telegraphing her total lack of comprehension, and he elaborates, his voice still ringing with almost existential dread. “You were no longer there at all.” He pauses, seemingly looking for words. “In the Fade, time is not so... sequential. I sought you out, but all my senses told me that you had never been. If not for the others’ corroboration..." He laughs, the sound mirthless and brittle in the eerie emptiness of their shared non-space. "I had to ask Blackwall if he recalled you. I believe the Warden might think me mad. I was in fact beginning to think he might be correct on that account. I had half a mind that I _imagined_ you. I told myself, one more attempt to reach you in the Fade, before accepting the inevitable.”

Margo reaches for his hand. "Amund taught me a new trick. I will tell you about it when we have more time, but the main goal was to help me avoid Imshael.”

Solas’s fingers interlace with hers, and then, perhaps to garner further proof of her relative materiality, he tugs her against him once more, his other arm snaking around her waist. He takes a quiet breath, and his rigid posture softens a fraction. At length, the beginning of a smile tugs at the corners of his lips. “A new trick,” he parrots back, his voice an unlikely mixture of annoyance, relief, and cautious amusement. “I will _show_ you 'new tricks.'”

Her follow-up question never passes her lips — his mouth on hers muffles the words, scrambling her thoughts until only the thrumming of her Fade-manifested body remains, too realistic for comfort, tense and boneless and aching all at once.

When they pull apart, not a little reluctantly, Margo abruptly recalls that her seeking him out in the Great Sepia Sandwich had a pragmatic goal. It has the effect of a cold shower — a much needed one, she decides. Maybe she could coax the Fade into manifesting actual cold showers next time. “I would still like to know why you lot didn’t show up. The others have decided to go on with the plan without you. We attack the Templar camp later tonight.”

“Did you not receive our messages?" 

Uh-oh. Maybe Avian Mail is on strike?

Solas frowns. His hands on her upper arms tighten. "The Herald sought to help the refugees, ensuring they would survive the winter months. Their situation is dire and urgent. They are on the edge of starvation. Many are separated from their kin, desperately looking for news. A raven should have carried a request for you to delay.”

Margo shakes her head. “We received no such messages. Have you gotten ours?”

“No.” He peers at her, oddly hesitant, then he casts his gaze towards the featureless ground. “When I had confirmed you… real, but gone, I came to the most logical conclusion. I had assumed something had happened. I cautioned the seeker not to proceed until we learned more about the fate of your patrol. If your team was lost already..." He clears his throat. "Since there were other tasks that required immediate attention, and would further the Inquisition’s goals...” He trails off. 

Margo mulls this over. It makes sense. No matter what happens to any of them, the main priority is to keep Evie out of trouble. And the whole point of their overwrought maneuvering is to garner support. Political power. She would have likely done the same if their places had been reversed, even if it would have torn her up. She looks at the elf again, and suddenly the jumble of emotions she can sense from him lends itself to easier interpretation. “A prudent decision.” She kicks the ambivalence under the proverbial rug, to join all her other unwelcome thoughts. Hopefully the rug conceals a pocket universe, otherwise she will run out of room.

“Yes.” His features turn hard, as if he is executing his own rug sweeping maneuver.

“You worried me,” Margo adds, not liking his expression one bit. “I had similar thoughts regarding your fate. Minus the concern over your reality, that is.”

Some complicated emotion flickers in his eyes, the primary ingredient of which seems to be doubt. “I…” With a visible effort, he shifts his focus. “Will you be able to overcome the Templars on your own? We are half-a-day’s journey away.”

“I hope so. Amund is worried, but the others are eager.”

Solas lips press into a grim line. “Then I will advise Cassandra to make haste. Can you delay until morning?”

“Harding thinks this should be done under the cover of darkness. She and Bull are planning a stealthy attack.”

Solas vacillates, but then his hands come up to cup her face, and he peers at her, as if trying to impart something important without the use of words. “You will be cautious?”

Margo smiles at him. “Of course. You know me. I’ll throw some bombs, insult their mothers and their manhood. The usual.”

He gives her an irritated look. “This will again result in me having to put you back together, I suspect.”

“And there’s your incentive to be punctual,” Margo teases. 

The elf makes a displeased little sound at the back of his throat, and pulls her into another embrace, bringing their faces close. “Must I give you an ‘incentive’ not to get yourself killed, fenor?”

“I won't stop you from trying…”

And try he does. Whatever he laces into the kiss isn’t physical, more of an added psychic dimension, where something of the underlying feelings trickle from him into her perception. It’s a kaleidoscopic glimmer of images and sensations, rendered briefly and only in fleeting flashes, there and then gone in the next instant — the ghost of a touch, the trace of a memory that isn’t one. One flicker in particular extrapolates what would have happened had Cullen not interrupted them, and it sears itself into her awareness with its uninhibited, unapologetic salacity. Apparently, in that particular instantiation of a quantum probability that did not come to pass, she would have ended up on top of the work station — a scenario which, she supposes, would have taken advantage of their height difference. The image is from his perspective. Margo gasps against his lips, and then, with the one fragment of her attention that isn’t entirely flooded, she forms her own fake memory bubble and retaliates. That one elaborates on the chair option. It’s nowhere near as visually detailed as his, but what it lacks in graphics, it makes up in haptics. He shudders against her with a groan and sends back another image, half-scrambled. Some wall, somewhere, she's not sure which — the decor is an afterthought. He uses sound to convey the general idea. In the vision, they are both carelessly vocal.

Margo tries to condense another image to send back, but she can't muster the necessary focus. Something passes between them, sidestepping the lure of the physical. The image slips, spilling. Beneath her fingers, the sudden coolness of skin. Shaky bursts of breath against her ear. The landscape begins to shift, the Sepia Sandwich eroding, morphing into something else, yet undecided. 

They practically tumble away from each other. The surrounding world stabilizes once again. Margo presses her hands to her cheeks, but her palms offer no coolness. Right. It’s one thing to be reasonably certain of another’s apparent intentions, based on outward signs, and an altogether other thing to get a peek into their head.

“That...” Solas breathes out, his eyes narrowing in something that mixes, in an utterly incomprehensible combination, desire, humor, and alarm. With a great deal of the first, and not a small dose of the last. “What exactly is that Avvar teaching you?”

“Hey! Leave Amund out of this — I learn by imitation. Besides, you started this.”

“I most certainly did not. I shared a… thought. Not the…” He clears his throat. “Physical sensations that may accompany it.”

Margo represses an impending fit of undignified hilarity. “As I recall, you shared more than just _one_ thought. Besides, why would the visual be fair game, but the sensory too much?” she asks, certain that his usual cheeky expression has somehow passed on to her.

For a few seconds, he just looks vexed, but then the annoyance cedes its place to a wicked sort of amusement. “I suppose that is a philosophical question?”

Margo grins. “We have a peculiar record of debating those.”

“Yes. And unless you plan to follow up on that ‘thought’ in the immediate future, I would suggest we return to more pressing issues.”

Margo looks him over and makes a herculean effort to refrain from pointing out the facile double entendre. Still, the giggles bubble up to the surface. And of course, she’s pretty sure he knows exactly where her train of thought took her, because he frowns and shifts in place, looking at once incensed, amused, and exasperated.

“I’m sure between the two of us we could conjure up a bed.” She somehow manages an even tone. “Or a chair. An alchemy table? Or was it a wall?” She loses the internal battle, and dissolves into chortles.

The elf shakes his head. “Do not tempt me, or I assure you I will take you up on your implied offer, and we will make do without any furniture at all," he comments, rather dryly at that. But the look he gives her makes Margo’s legs turn to water, and generally bodes poorly for her continued commitment to remaining vertical. She closes her eyes to get him out of her visual field, which would make for one less irritant to her already overloaded nervous system.

She hears Solas sigh, and she can almost feel the shift in his mood. “Oh, ma’nas. This…” There is a long pause. “Distraction. It is ill-conceived. You have a battle ahead of you. I have taken up too much of your time and attention.”

She opens her eyes, and meets his now shuttered gaze. All the laughter drains out of her, and the expression she returns is guarded. The "distraction" track seems to be habitual for him, and Margo suddenly has to wrestle with the certainty that at its end lies the sight of him walking away. And whatever iatrogenic effects this will have on her heart at this point. A question she is not at all ready to consider.

“And there will be battles after this one, all of them with an uncertain outcome for any of us. A distraction by any other name is whatever semblance of a life one can scrape together in the middle of this shitshow.” She pauses, steeling herself for the next part of her question, because, in the end, she is not at all certain what his answer might be. She did not anticipate ending up at this particular juncture — not here, not now — but there’s no helping what’s done. Fate isn’t a dog, you can’t beat it away with a stick, as Baba would have it. “Would you begrudge me that? Or yourself?”

She watches the echoes of his usual internal conflict play out in his eyes, and then his gaze softens. But his face retains the hard edges of whatever mask he chooses to hide himself behind. “I… am uncertain.” He looks away, letting his eyes glide over the featureless landscape. “Would you permit me to revisit this question at a later date?”

Margo makers herself nod, despite the painful constriction in her chest. She forces her face into a neutral expression. “Sure. I suppose there are Templars to deal with first.”

He gives her a long look, and she wonders if he is about to add something. “Please do be careful,” he finally murmurs.

“And you.”

Before she can say goodbye, she is jolted out of the Fade.

“Good nap, Outworlder?” Amund asks. Margo is pretty sure the Avvar’s eyes are crinkled in amusement.

***

From the top of the cliff, the camp is hardly visible. Above them, the sky is a velvety black, and the unfamiliar clusters of stars look like tiny holes punctured in a thick black veil.

The lone sentry walking around with his torch, in commendably predictable intervals of about ten minutes, is the only source of illumination. From his oscillatory ambling, Margo gets the layout of the camp: a few tents, mostly lining the edge of the ravine, some supply crates and other military miscellanea sheltered under an overhang. Bedrolls clustering around a campfire, probably for the grunts — she guesses the higher-ups get their own tents.

It’s not that different from any of the camps she has stayed in so far, and the parallels weigh on her.

They crawl, as quietly as they can, in the sparse shrubbery at the top of the rocky plateau. Margo nestles a bomb into a shallow indentation between two rocks, right at the edge of the cliff. The little pocket hugs the bottom of the pot securely enough that it wouldn’t tumble down on its own, though it shouldn't require much more than a gentle push.

There are six bombs in total, and they set them up strategically, Harding squinting into the darkness and then indicating where the pots ought to go. When the sentry is at the far side of his perimeter, they move, steps light, mindful not to dislodge any pebbles. It’s like one of those “freeze” games that children play, except with explosives.

By the time the bombs are in place, a moon, entirely too large by Earth standards, creeps up from behind the mountain range — a fat, tawny disk bisected by some kind of geological formation that appears to be a giant chasm. Margo squints at it, her brow furrowed. Until seeing it, the idea that she is, in fact, on a different planet somehow hadn’t crossed her mind.

She shoves the thought firmly under the proverbial rug, again. Maybe all those unwilling thoughts can form a committee.

She plops down next to Dorian, who is leaning his back against a rock, tracing some kind of sigil in the dust with the tip of his staff. Sera, on the other side of the small platform where they’ve set up an intermediary relay point, is perched on a boulder — in a pose vaguely reminiscent of those gargoyles you find at the top of medieval cathedrals and overpriced New York City condos. She is fletching an arrow.

“Still nothing?” Harding asks quietly, and the other two shake their heads.

She turns to Margo.

“Are you certain your information is reliable? We have nothing else to go on.”

Margo shrugs. “Yes. Unless something else holds them up, they will arrive by morning.” She draws a breath, her chest tight. “We might as well start.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mostly edited for clearer foreshadowing.


	32. Combustion (^)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo deploys some bombs, encounters an armored mollusk, and Dorian's spells are most unpleasant.  
> CW: graphic depiction of violence

With her stomach pressed against the rough limestone surface at the edge of the cliff, Margo waits. In the bluish moonlight, the rest of her patrol has melted into the shadows at the clifftop, and the faint illumination doesn’t reach into the ravine at all. Some twenty feet beneath her, the sentry does another circle, the soft clanking of his armor drifting up to her hiding spot. He pauses. In the glow of the torch he carries, she sees him shuffle in place, boredom and tiredness making his movement sluggish.

Somewhere to her left, a soft bird call rises from the velvety darkness. It sounds like an owl’s hoot, low and muffled. Unless it’s an actual owl, which just happened to decide to hoot in the Thedosian version of Morse code, it’s her cue. She waits for another few seconds. The return call is a crow’s caw. Hopefully, this is indeed her team communicating, and not the local birds having a midnight chat — just your neighborly avian exchange. “Hello neighbor, how about them mice?”

Margo takes a fortifying breath and extracts the “match” that Harding gave her: a shard of red mineral attached to a stick by some kind of petrified resin. Harding had referred to it, in helpfully descriptive fashion, as a “fire crystal."

 _“Mother, do you think they’ll drop the bomb?”_ Margo mouths quietly, because Pink Floyd is better than an anxiety attack. Have bomb, will travel. There it goes. She strikes the crystal against a rock. It flares to life, the sudden heat scalding her fingers, and she brings it to the makeshift wick of her kimchi-pot-qua-weapon-of-mass-destruction. The oiled cloth catches with an enthusiastic " _frrrrrr_."

Three, two, one. She pushes the pot off the ledge. It goes tumbling down the cliffside, and for a second Margo’s stomach drops with it — she can almost feel herself hurling down after the pot, the bomb like an extension of her own body. And then her stomach drops further still, because what if the wick goes out?

There's no real detonation — at least, based on the sound. But light and heat flare up from the ravine, the blast of hot air blowing stray strands of Margo's hair back from her face. A man screams… and then screams, and screams, a horrible sound. There goes the sentry. Margo grinds her teeth against the stench — pungent, oily smoke; hot metal; and a whiff of charred meat.

 _“Mother, do you think they’ll like this song?”_ She forces the lyrics out between clenched teeth. Better clenched than chattering. Chances are, they won’t like it one little bit.

The camp bursts into a frenzy of activity like one of those wasp nests she and Jake would stupidly poke with a stick when they were kids before running for cover. Not the best time to introspect over one’s childhood. Margo springs to her feet and she quickly sets off in the direction of the next bomb, wedged into a crevice about fifteen paces from where she is crouching. No telling what the others are doing, but some of the shouts seem to be coming from her team. Then, as if her ears suddenly tune into it, the whistle of arrows and the thwack of a bowstring, pulled and released at incredible speed.

Ten more paces. More shouts from below. A cry, gurgling, then rasping, and she sees, in her mind’s eye, an arrow piercing a throat. Hopefully not one of theirs.

 _Mother, do you think they’ll try to break my balls?_ Ball-breaking. A time-honored practice, that.

Five paces.

“There! By the cliff! Get that warrior!” someone bellows below. A roar, the sound bestial and a little demented — she decides this must be Bull’s battle cry. Metal clanking against metal with a thick, echoing resonance that reverberates through her teeth.

Zero.

Margo falls to her knees by the bomb and peers down. Shadows dance and wobble below, like some medieval fantasy of Hell. There, right by that tent. She just needs to angle the projectile to hit the ground in front of those two templars guarding the tent’s entrance. The two archers draw their bows and aim into the semi-darkness, but they do not move away from the tent. Maybe there’s something valuable in there; best not set it on fire then.

She waits for the bird call. Another crow’s caw, and she hits her match against the ground at her feet, but it’s too dusty, and the crystal doesn’t catch. She switches tactics and uses the rough clay flank of the pot. The crystal flares. The red spark runs down the length of the cord with a crackle. She picks up the bomb. It’s heavy, but she can lob it if she uses both hands. Ah fuck, she’s probably going to blow herself up in the long run. Two, one…

She hurls the pot and crouches at the edge of the cliff, watching the pot’s parabolic arc. One of the templars looks up. Too late for him. He still manages to yell “cliff top” before the flames engulf him.

_Mother, should I build the wall?_

Whatever will keep you busy, honey.

An arrow whistles past her ear, close enough for the gust of displaced air to ruffle the hairs at her nape. Close, but no cigar, you fuckers.

Ten paces.

A flare of purple — straight ahead along the cliff’s edge — silhouettes a man twirling a staff. She can feel the spell building before it hits below, and its echo twists her stomach in irrational, primordial horror. It tugs at something deep and atavistic, straight out of childhood nightmares — the cold, slimy, incomprehensible monstrosity staring at you in alien malice from the ceiling, when the lights are off and your Baba has gone to sleep. You know it’s there, and it knows you know it’s there, and it’s just biding its time before it scuttles down.

A curse, someone else screaming in terror. The scream is abruptly cut off.

 _Mama’s gonna make all your nightmares come true._ She stumbles over the lyrics, skipping around, but her mind is a jumble, conjuring word scraps by association.

Five paces.

Another arrow hits a rock in front of her, and she jumps over it. Keep moving. She drops to the ground, feeling for the pot in the dark. There. Right by that boulder, a flap of white — the wick. She peeks over the edge. There’s a group of three templars, looking in their heavy armor like the bastard children of an icebreaker ship and a pressure cooker. They’re slowly advancing on The Iron Bull, who stands at the ready, his feet planted wide, the claymore glinting uninvitingly in the flickering light. And then, suddenly, a hulking blue shadow materializes right behind one of the templars. Margo catches the glinting arc of a stylized wolf’s head coming down at incredible speed. One of the templars collapses to his knees, his helmet halved in size like a crushed soda can. Blood sprays in a horizontal fan from the deformed eye slit, the liquid black in the glow of the fires.

She hesitates. There’s nothing this bomb can add to the current arrangement.

Another flare of purple, the reverb of sticky horror, and a hail of arrows, flying both ways. Each time Dorian casts, he becomes a target.

Margo forces herself to stop and think. What now? Her main role is to make sure none of the enemy troops can retreat downhill. And the others' job is to make them want to retreat downhill.

There, in the bushes by the ravine, three figures. She recognizes Asher — she would have thought he’d be a rogue, but no, sword and shield for that one. He is facing off with an archer who must have retreated to the shadows earlier and chose this moment to take a stand. A rogue is skulking around them in a wide circle, trying to outflank the Specimen.

Can Asher hold his own against the templars, or does he need help? Can Dorian keep casting, or is it just a matter of time before an arrow finds him? Can Amund and Bull best their opponents? And what it all boils down to, in the end, is whether the augur’s auguring is accurate and whether the battle will turn against them. And if so, when. Because right now, by all appearances, they’ve got the upper hand.

Margo freezes in the clutches of indecision. What will be the effect of her intervention, should she take it upon herself to preemptively deviate from the plan? Is she going to make things worse? _Think_ , she tells herself fiercely. _Think_. Rationally speaking, as far as large explosive devices are concerned, there is no such thing as friendly fire. Fire, by and large, is an equal opportunity unfriendly sort of thing, and it’s not like her team has any special immunity to combustion, as far as she knows. Right. Hem in the templars. All other things being equal, better stick with the program.

She grabs the bomb and makes her way towards the part of the cliff that overlooks the camp’s entrance. The remaining three bombs are stashed behind a boulder, about ten paces away from where her original pickling jar of doom took flight and roasted that poor bastard on sentry duty.

An arrow grazes her shoulder, white hot pain flaring. _Move, you idiot. This isn't a stroll on the beach._ She almost drops the pot. “Just a scratch” sounds all well and good, except it still smarts like hell. She stumbles forward, doubling her speed. Something about moving targets. She’ll get the elfroot potion when she makes it to her destination.

There are shouts from below, and someone barks “regroup” and “down.” At that same moment a horn rings out in the distance. At least, she thinks it's a horn. She has no way of assessing how far it is, but generally speaking, horns are used as signaling systems of some sort, aren’t they?

Almost there.

Margo dives behind the boulder where the other three bombs are stashed. That, and the vial of tar jello that Amund had made her take with her, just in case, even after Sera and Harding categorically refused to put it on their arrows. “What even is that shite?” Sera had asked, and Margo couldn’t do anything but shrug, because Amund still didn’t disclose what the formula was for.

Clutching the fourth pot, she creeps to the edge. The glare of the fires plunges the top of the cliff into comparatively deeper darkness. Here is to hoping that it will make shooting at her less effective.

There is a quartet of templars retreating in formation towards the entrance of the camp, where the barricades designed to keep intruders out might give them some cover. Their shields are raised against Harding and Sera’s arrows. The archer splits from the group and makes a run for the closest barricade. Right, you fucker. Come a little closer. Margo lights the wick. Three, two, one...

The bomb hits the wooden hedgehog, and everything bursts into flames, including the archer. Very combustible, archers.

Margo crawls back, shutting her eyes against the sight of grizzly death. Her stomach executes a most unpleasant backflip, and her last meal attempts to flee the way it came. The sound of the skirmish blurs. Seconds stretch into minutes, minutes stretch into centuries. When it’s over, Margo has no idea how much time passed. She pinches the inside of her wrist to break through the catatonic torpor that threatens to settle over her like a heavy, numbing shroud.

“All clear!” Bull’s voice carries from below like a gong. “You guys can rappel down.”

Did they not hear the horn over the mess of battle sounds? Margo orders herself to her feet. She walks cautiously along the cliff’s edge, trying to peer into the darkness beyond the camp. The moon disappeared behind a cloud, and the night feels absolute — thick and black as soot. The ghostly outline of flames — a green imprint fading to red on her retinas — dances in front of her vision, and she blinks a few times to try to clear it.

Then, finally, her vision adjusts and she sees them. They’re little more than flickering shadows moving up the mountain road, but Margo catches the sputter of a torch being extinguished in haste. The cloud drifts on. The moonlight glints on the metal of their armor. At least six more armored bastards, maybe more if they have sneaky-stabby sorts stalking the perimeter.

“Templars incoming!” Margo yells. “Six at least, about two hundred and fifty paces away!”

Curses from below, all three in different languages, and not a single one of them in Common. Still, she need not be a linguist to derive the general gist.

Harding and Dorian have rejoined the others, but Sera’s nowhere in sight. Bull, Asher, and Amund are already dragging what remains of the barricades deeper into camp and away from the flames. She watches the mage and the scout confer quickly before taking off in opposite directions, in search for elevated spots to occupy.

As if in response to Margo’s unspoken query, Sera materializes next to her. “Frig, right? Where’s the rest of the tin-headed pillocks?”

Margo, with a sigh of relief at Sera's company, points towards the road.

“Shite. That’s quite a few of them.” The elven archer cuts Margo an irate look. “I’m not low-low on arrows, but I am low-ish. Got bombs, yeah?”

“Three left.”

Sera nods. “That’s not half bad. Can take out at least the first couple of blighters, ‘specially if we do it all sneaky-like.”

Right. Sneaky-like will work for the first bomb. After that, it’s going to be bluff and bluster — and a hefty dose of luck — all the way through.

Margo huddles down with her pot, fire crystal at the ready. Beneath them, the others have taken up positions. She can spot all of them from her vantage point, but from the road, it’s quite possible they’re well hidden. The templar patrol might not know how many they’re up against.

All right. Now would be the time to follow Amund’s recommendations.

She leaves the pot, crawls back behind the boulder with the other bombs, and picks up the mysterious tar potion. She dribbles some of it on her daggers and quickly turns away with a muffled curse. It smells like a combination of rotten eggs and roadkill. The stench alone is a lethal weapon.

“I’m still not putting that on my arrows. Just so we’re clear.”

Margo doesn’t get a chance to respond. Below them, she can hear the fall of footsteps — quiet, but definitely _closer_. Clearly, Sera hears it too, because she tenses and leans forward, bow turned horizontal as she lines up the shot.

Margo sheaths the daggers — the leather will stink for weeks, no doubt, not that this will matter to her if they don’t make it out of this — and crawls back to the ledge. The pottery of mass destruction is right there, ready to be deployed. She watches as the first figure steps into the flickering light of the smoldering barricade. She waits. No point in wasting the bomb on the single asshole. Maybe his friends will want to join in.

The templar lifts a fist, apparently signaling to his buddies to exercise caution.

Behind her, Margo hears a sharp twang, and an arrow whistles by. It might have even flown true, right into the strip of exposed flesh at the templar’s neck, if he hadn’t chosen this exact moment to bend down and examine the dead sentry at his feet. The arrow disappears in the darkness over the ravine.

“Shite,” Sera mutters, and Margo hears the creak of the bow being readied for the next shot.

The templar group explodes into motion, fanning out, no longer concerned about stealth. This, Margo decides, works in her favor. She lights the wick, counts, and tosses the bomb, right between two figures running towards the barricade.

The pot tumbles, bounces off the cliff’s edge, and then just plops down, breaks apart, and utterly fails to explode. The two templars jump back and then stare at the pot in consternation, before moving briskly past the barricades. Margo can’t tell whether they were splashed with the flammable mixture or not.

A flicker of purple catches her attention, and Dorian’s horror spell hits, but one of the templars motions with his arms — the gesture somewhere between a shoulder stretch and a “ _the fish was this big_ ” kind of number — and a golden sphere bursts away from him, like a wave of sparkling static. Judging by the absence of terrified screams, and by the total lack of magical echo, the templar’s trick annuls the casting.

Shit. Right. Fire. Margo turns towards the boulder again and picks up the next bomb — after this one, they’re down to one.

Wick. Three, two, one. Please be a good bomb. She throws it.

This one has the decency to explode, and it then dominoes the spilled extract into a wall of flame that cuts off the two templars in front from the contingent of four — no, five, there’s the sneaky archer stalking in the shadows — in the back.

The templars retreat a bit from the wall of fire. Arrows whistle.

A metallic clanking draws her attention, and she twists in time to see the figure emerge from the bushes at the top of the plateau, some ten paces from where she and Sera are hauled up.

The templar is huge. Three hundred pounds of metal and muscle and murderous intent, if his drawn sword is any indication.

“Keep the tin-plated pissbag off me, yeah?” Sera calls out, as she focuses her arrows on the enemies below.

Right. Going toe-to-toe with a templar. No biggie. Margo might survive this for — oh, two minutes?

“Well, look at this!” the templar quips, the sound of his voice muffled by his helmet. “Pretty little knife-ears. Must be my lucky day.” Margo unsheathes her daggers, the smell of the coating still nauseating. It doesn’t seem to discourage the templar one bit. “Maybe I’ll keep you for dessert. How does that sound?”

“Like a bucket trying to make a funny, you shitgoblin,” Margo responds. When in doubt, taunt.

The bastard is wearing a full set of plate mail. She has no idea where to even start — if she’ll be able to get that close in the first place, considering the much longer reach of his sword compared to her knives. This is sort of like trying to shuck an oyster with a nail file — with the caveat that the oyster outweighs you by two hundred pounds, is armed to the teeth, and seems intent on shucking you right back.

The templar decides not to engage in further repartee. He lunges at her and Margo scrambles out of the way of the blade and to the right. She barely manages to avoid a shield bash — apparently the lunge was intended to send her into the shield’s trajectory, which makes her conclude that the murderous mollusk really is trying to keep her for later, rather than just kill her right away.

She circles, and he pivots with her, laughter resonating from inside the metal encasement. Right. Overconfident lecherous asshole with no peripheral vision. She can work with that.

He lunges again, and this time Margo is ready for it. She steps to the left.

“Gonna make me chase you, little girl?”

He doesn’t even sound winded. Maybe she can tire him out, but it’ll take some doing.

Apparently, the first few attacks were just foreplay, because suddenly, the mollusk gets serious, and it takes all of Margo’s concentration to dodge the incoming blows. For a mountain of steel, he is fast.

 _Think. Fucking think._ She barely manages to block a pommel strike aimed at her head, the impact against her crossed daggers rattling her teeth and reverberating down her arms.

Then, suddenly, the wind is knocked out of her, a sharp pain spearing her in the ribs. She doubles over from the blow, vaguely cognizant that the fucker used the pommel strike to force her to open up, the better to drive the edge of his shield into her side. Blackwall would _not_ be proud.

She gasps for air, her lungs screaming as if she’s drowning, but she manages to roll out of the way of the boot aimed at her throat.

An arrow glances off her assailan’s helmet, and that shifts his attention for a second, enough for Margo to get back to her feet.

She’s not going to get another chance like this. She moves low and jabs with her dagger, praying to every singly deity known and unknown to man — and really, to whomever or whatever might be listening — that Amund’s concoction is a fast poison. And to her complete and utter surprise, her strike finds its target, and the knife slides right between the metal plates where the templar’s knee joint articulates.

“Bitch!” he roars, lunging with a stumble, the tip of his sword whistling mere inches from Margo’s face.

“A little help here,” she hears Sera yell, but the sound is muffled, Margo’s ears suddenly stuffed full of cotton wool.

She feels the spell before it hits — a trickle of dread at the back of her mind — and then a pocket of darkness encases her and snaps closed, a suffocating sack of absolute, mindless terror. Her vision goes blank. Then, as if oozing into being out of the amorphous nothingness, something fanged, vaguely lupine, and thoroughly vile leaps for her throat. Margo screams, her heart racing so fast she thinks it’s going to break out of her chest, and then the thing’s teeth rend her skin.

The pain is utterly blinding. She screams again. Terror cedes way to sudden fury. Wolves? Really? That’s the best the sticky horror can do? The thought triggers something in her mind — and it’s exactly like forcing herself awake from a bad dream — back when dreams didn’t involve the Fade.

The mirage crumbles apart.

She finds herself on the ground — right next to Murderous Oyster. He’s writhing in the dust and sobbing, shielding his head with his arms, and blabbering something about, of all blighted things, fruit tarts. Margo grabs the dagger she dropped earlier, crawls to the prone shape, raises her arm, and drives the knife into the eye slit with all her might. No such thing as a clean fight.

The body twitches for a while after that. When she’s reasonably sure he’s not getting back up, Margo hobbles over to Sera and ducks back behind the boulder. Her ribs scream with each movement. She fumbles for an elfroot potion and drains it in a few gulps.

“How are we doing?” she asks once the pain subsides.

“We’re not doing shite, is how. Everyone's hauled up. At this point, it’s just trading arrows. And now I’m low -low.” Sera extracts another arrow from her quiver and contemplates it thoughtfully. “I think they’re just waiting us out. Probably have friends coming. Frigging frig, ‘cause I really need to piss.”

Margo harrumphs despite herself. The moon has paled, and the sky is turning a translucent pre-dawn blue. A narrow strip of pink hugs the horizon. Just because it’s edging towards morning doesn’t mean Evie’s team is magically coming to the rescue. What it does mean is that Margo’s party will soon lose whatever advantage darkness provided.

Margo considers the last kimchi pot at her feet and then crawls to the ledge. She peeks out and quickly retreats. The templars are settled behind barricades, none of them within reachable distance. She doesn’t know whether the others are biding their time because they’re waiting for reinforcements, or because there’s no way to take out the remaining templars without heavy losses — or because some are injured. Or plain old exhausted. Or a combination of all four. She’s only been in fast skirmishes before — never something that stretches into a stalemate. Which, come to think of it, is probably what most wars are like. Lots of waiting. Anxious boredom. Physical exhaustion. Bladder woes. And dysentery.

She crawls back to the boulder.

In the distance, the horn rings out again, and Margo freezes. Well, shit. Based on the optimistic hoots from below, that’s more templars.

“We’re sitting nugs,” Sera whispers loudly. “We need to give ours a chance to break out before the rest of the tinheads show up.”

Margo tries to force her thoughts into a semblance of coherence despite the sudden tide of exhaustion. The adrenaline crash is fogging her mind and dulling the edges, as if she’s looking at the world through a thick pane of frosted glass.

“We got more blowy shite, so it’s all good, innit?”

Margo shakes her head. “We’re going to need something more than just blowy shite.” She meets Sera’s eyes in the semi-darkness. “You want to try an alchemical experiment?”

Sera’s eyebrows draw together. “Friggin’ no, I don’t.” She points her thumb over her shoulder. “But I bet the pillocks down there won’t mind.”

Fair enough. What did Amund say? It’s a gamble? Margo nods. So. Logically speaking… She pinches the bridge of her nose, urging her mind to get with the program. Logically speaking, the lichen appears to open a stronger connection to the Fade. Her own latest dreaming seems to bear witness to that. And it should account for the difference between her reaction to Dorian’s spell and the templar’s reaction to the same conditions. She was able to snap herself out of it and was up and running while bucket-head was still blabbering on about fruit tarts, despite their massive weight difference. From empirical evidence gathered so far, the jello works when it gets into the bloodstream. But they don’t have that option, because armored mollusks... And shrapnel, even if she had materials to make it, is not going to be enough against plate armor... But. Margo waves a finger in the air, at no one in particular. The blood lotus in her pots, in addition to being an accelerant, doubles as a hallucinogenic. What was Auntie’s story about blood lotus and Orlesian nobles? Something about fumes and taking a bite out of statues?

Fumes.

She exhales through her teeth with another mental prayer to an unspecified addressee, and then she fishes for the vial of tar jello, and pours its contents into the remaining bomb. It’s probably not as good as using it as a coating, but whatever chemical reaction happened to it overnight, it’s already over, its properties stable. Hopefully. Now it’s a matter of stretching the concoction. And of devising a proper carrier for it.

If she dies, she’ll haunt the Avvar to the end of his days, out of sheer spite.

Fuck it. Let’s gamble.

~~~

If you had asked Margo beforehand what would likely decide the course of battle, a _pen_ would not have made the top ten. The irony feels particularly poignant — for an alleged historian, in any case. Of course pens decide the course of battles. And wars. And everything else besides.

She extracts Auntie’s compendium out of the inner pocket of her coat. She hates tearing pages out of the book — the damn thing feels more like a talisman than a botanical treatise at this point. But necessity being the mother of invention — along with all sorts of other ethically flexible progeny — she locates a relatively empty page towards the beginning of the volume. It’s the one with the sigil of the printing house, and she supposes that tearing out the Thedosian equivalent of the copyright is as close as she’ll get to turning this otherwise mildly sacrilegious act into a subversive one.

This doesn't solve the pen problem. “Sera? Do you have something to write with?”

The archer's look makes Margo wonder whether she sprouted horns. “Yeah, a nice sharp quill and an inkwell, just right in my pocket here. Trying to write the tin-heads a love note?”

She supposes it would have been just a tad too convenient. Margo looks around until she locates a suitable wooden splinter on the ground. She uses one of her daggers to sharpen it to a point. “A love note to Dorian, actually.” At Sera’s cocked eyebrow, she shrugs. “I need to get him to lend a hand without the templars finding out. Could you shoot it over to him?”

Sera’s eyes twinkle with amused recognition. “Maaaaybe. Proper Red Jenny trick, that.”

Margo uses the fire crystal to blacken her make-shift writing utensil. “Pen” and paper in hand, she concentrates, trying to decide what to write. At least the orthography of Common matches standard modern English — which, come to think of it, is a truly bizarre case of linguistic convergence — but she still feels a wave of relief at not needing to add silent vowels everywhere.

 _At my signal..._ At my signal what, exactly? She needs to vaporize the compound without letting it combust. The smoke might have similar psychotropic effects, but she isn’t willing to take the risk, in case oxidation changes the formula’s properties too drastically. So she needs to diffuse it, without letting it all burn out. The timing will have to be just right. Now, where to get water?

 _At my signal, make it rain?_ Margo snorts. As life affirming as the mental image of Dorian conjuring twirling banknotes over a crowd of gyrating templars is, it probably won't have the desired effect.

Maybe she should send the message to Amund — who knows, perhaps controlling the weather is part of his repertoire.

She hesitates. This truly _is_ a gamble. Especially because she is entirely unsure about what constitutes Dorian’s particular skill set, aside from the thoroughly unenjoyable and equal opportunity horror spell. Unlike the Orlesian Ice Queen and her magic, Dorian hasn’t cast anything remotely water-based that Margo has seen.

Well. If they’re lucky, perhaps the fellow has something unusual up his sleeve.

Decision made, Margo puts her pen to the paper. Dorian seems like a smart cookie. Which is to say, she doesn’t need to simplify too much. Hopefully he will improvise in the right direction.

Except that writing a lengthy explanation with a piece of blackened wood is not a trivial proposition. With each letter, the writing stick squeaks against the paper, the loathsome sound setting Margo’s teeth on edge and sending goosebumps down her forearms. She has to re-blacken the splinter twice before she gets to the end of her missive. She reads it over. Ugly, but legible.

“ _Need steam to poison templars. Can you douse flames with water after blast? Hit with scary spell after. -M._ ”

So much for not simplifying.

Task completed — and none too soon — she hands the piece of paper to Sera. The archer rolls it around the arrow shaft in a practiced motion, and then yanks a red thread out of her fraying tunic to secure the note. “We should write more messages! Wait, this’ll be brilliant! We tell Bull to flash his arse at the tin-heads. While they’re all gaping, we jump down and steal their breeches. They’re all running around holding on to their junk, and _then_ we set them on fire!”

Margo chuckles. “If my strategy doesn’t work out, we’ll try yours next.”

“No friggin’ way. Let’s kill the tinned pillocks — tillocks? Tinlocks? Tillicocks? Anyway, let’s just kill them now and go. I’m starving. And I need to piss something fierce.”

Sera draws her bow, aims, and releases the arrow in the general direction of Dorian’s last known location. Margo cranes her neck to steal a glance from behind their stone shelter. A few responding arrows fly by, but they seem _pro forma_ : the templars are now firmly ensconced in place, waiting for the cavalry to arrive, and to wipe her team out for good.

What are the chances that this will work?

They wait. And wait, and wait. Margo fidgets. What if Dorian is injured or otherwise incapacitated? Or if his stores of magic are too low to fulfill her request? What if he has no such spell in his toolbox?

An arrow embeds itself in the ground, about two feet away from where Sera is sitting. The elf grabs it, detaches the rolled up note, hands it to Margo, and jams the arrow into her quiver.

“Lace’s fletchings are pretty,” Sera muses appreciatively.

Margo unfolds the strip of cream-colored parchment. It figures that Dorian would carry ink and paper with him. The note is written in an elegant cursive scrawl.

_“As it so happens, I do have the solution to your problem. I am, after all, indispensable._

_-D._

_PS: What a delightfully terse epistle, by the way! Very efficient. I should try my hand at dropping articles.”_

Margo nods. “We’re on,” she says to Sera, who gives her a lopsided smirk.

All right, then. The trick is to draw all the bastards as close to the blast as possible. She peeks over the ledge again, trying to assess the geometry of the templar scatter. She would have to detonate the bomb in the middle of them. In theory, she doesn’t even need to burn them, just expose them to the fumes.

It would be nice to not get herself killed in the process, but… well.

She turns to Sera again. On the very slim chance that she will not be dead by the end of this, Margo considers how to formulate her question without blowing her cover. From the scraps of interactions she’s had with Sera, she’s pretty sure the elf would not be particularly comfortable with Margo’s potentially “abominable” status. “I’m going to need to sneak up on them with the bomb.” She modulates her voice to convey a slightly sarcastic casualness. “I can’t lob it from here and hit where it needs to hit without a catapult.”

Sera smirks. “Grand! So you just shadow yourself over there, and I distract them.”

Margo makes an abashed face. “There’s just one problem,” she says, hoping with everything she’s got that Sera will fill in the blanks, and give her at least a _hint_ of what Jan’s shadow trick might have involved. Maile, after all, was a trained stealth fighter. Maybe her body remembers how to do it, even if Margo’s mind doesn’t know.

Sera scowls. “Don’t tell me you’re out of showder?”

What in the hell is “showder”?

Apparently, Margo’s expression is enough to convey her puzzlement, because Sera scrunches up her face into a mix of disapproval and amusement. “You know _._ Showder. Shust? Shadow in a Bottle? The black glinty sprinkly shite? Pish. You probably have some stupid elfie name for it, don’t you? And here I was beginning to think that you’re alright, not one of the annoying ones. ‘Blah blah blah, Arlathan. Blah blah blah, we were great once. Blah blah, the Veil is itchy here.’”

Margo’s eyes widen. Could she be so lucky? Is shadow walking caused by a _substance_? “I _am_ all out.”

“Figures. You know the shite’s expensive, right?” Sera shifts and fishes out a tiny vial of something that looks like a very thin, slightly sparkly black powder from her pocket. She hands it to Margo. “You owe me three ales, one brandy, and a meal. And cakes. Lots of cakes.”

“Void in a sack, Sera,” Margo mutters, with just a little twinge of surprise at how easily she adopted — and adapted — the local profanity. Then again, profanities are usually the first object of linguistic acquisition, along with “hello,” “goodbye,” and “where’s the loo?” “You’re worse than Varric.”

She looks at the bomb and considers how to transport it. There’s no way to climb down the cliff — not without ropes, anyway, and not while lugging a large pot. But then again the late bucket-head did make it up here, and it's unlikely that he was doing any rock-climbing in that armor.

“Sera, can you help me with applying the _showder?_ I need to hide the pot too, and it’ll be easier if someone else does the… umm... sprinkling?” She hopes it’s applied topically, not ingested.

“Oooh, ‘ _applying_.’ Sure, I'll _apply._ ” Sera takes the vial back. “Ready, yeah?”

Margo nods, and Sera uncorks the vial. The particles settle over her and the pot with a smell of lilacs and gunpowder. There is a strange, auditory component to the substance, voices whispering quietly just out of earshot. Margo looks down at her forearms, trying to ascertain the effects. The powder creates the illusion of absence — but it’s more than that. Her eyes want to skid away, to find something else to land on. She wonders if the stuff can be replicated. Probably not without some kind of magic.

She gets up, clutches the now largely invisible pot more tightly, and starts padding softly along the slope.

It takes her about five minutes to walk down the plateau — carefully avoiding tangling with bushes or tripping over rocks — but then, finally, she’s at a place where she can easily jump down to the packed dry dirt of the mountain road. She looks around, but there are no signs of other templars. Either the next wave of reinforcements is held up somewhere, or they were just blowing the horn for shits and giggles.

She sneaks up the road. It’s not the time for it, but her eyes are drawn to the sky overhead — a piercing, gorgeous lapis, shot through with the feathery gold of dawn clouds that catch the oblique rays of a sun on the cusp of emergence. Saying that it’s a beautiful day to die is just the sort of sentimental cliche the celestial light show seems to be calling for, and Margo sticks her tongue out at the sky. _Fuck you, too._ She’s not dying.

The first barricade comes into view, and she freezes. Two templars are sitting behind it. Their poses telegraph “calm but alert.” Further up the road, another pair behind another barricade, and then the last two behind a large boulder. The one closest to her lifts his helmed head, looks right at her — and then through her. The helmet pivots, and he goes back to fiddling with an armor strap.

She could toss the bomb from here, but it would put her too close to the first pair of tin-heads. With a mental prayer, she walks softly past them. _I’m just a little black rain cloud. Pay no attention to me._ Right. Never a good sign when you’ve devolved into muttering something from _Winnie the Pooh_.

An arrow whistles overhead and thwacks against the barricade, which draws the templar’s attention. Margo clenches her teeth and keeps going. The archer in front doesn’t even bother retaliating, perhaps because he’s conserving arrows. She hurries towards a large boulder on her left. It’s equidistant from the first and the third pair of tin-heads. Maybe she can use it to shield herself from the blast.

She’s almost at her destination when she hears a shout behind her.

“Rogue! Cliff side!”

She takes off at a run, no longer caring for stealth. Behind her, armor clatters. An arrow ricochets off the stone with a burst of sparks. She pivots. One templar is coming her way, sword drawn, but the others stay put. Right. No use forsaking shelter on behalf of a single lightly armored rogue. Another arrow glances off her would-be assailant’s helmet, slowing his progress for only a few seconds.

Margo strikes the crystal to the pot, brings it to the wick — _frrrrrr!_ — raises her arms, chucks the bomb with all her might into the middle of the road, and dives behind the boulder.

The blast makes her ears ring, but she forces the accompanying scream into a word. “Now!” Margo yells, hoping that Dorian will interpret this as his signal. She draws her daggers, fingers sticky and disobedient. The stink is awful, and mixing it with the acrid smoke does nothing to improve it. She gets to her feet and turns around, half-expecting to come nose-to-nose with the templar who had decided to confront her. The fire is different from that of the regular bombs: more sluggish, cooler, and tinged purple. The templar is on the ground — likely knocked over by the blast — but the others are all at the outer edges of the smoldering epicenter, frozen mid-motion.

They are all looking up.

She follows their gazes and gapes. About ten feet above the blast radius, something amorphous hovers, and it takes Margo’s overtaxed brain a seconds to process what it is. It is… a drop of water. Except it’s the size of a minivan. The quivering mass of liquid is speckled with debris — algae, twirling sediment, and a very confused and disgruntled-looking fish.

And then the water remembers that it’s meant to obey gravity, and it falls.

The ground sizzles, a thick, oily vapor billowing out in a suffocating cloud that stinks of sulphur, curdled blood, and rose petals. Margo gags, but before she has the chance to worry about her unsettled stomach, the horror spell hits.

The darkness sucks her in like quicksand, and she falls, directionless, into its roiling center. A blur of impressions — too quick and too awful to process — assaults her senses. Bodies rent apart. Faces contorted in agonized screams, black tongues lolling out like dead slugs over cracked lips, eyeballs rotting, pale larvae wriggling in the eye sockets.

She falls deeper, tangles further, flails.

Things brush against her insides, trying to morph her into their awful configuration. Eyes where mouths should be, and mouths where hands should be, and teeth where there shouldn’t be any. She struggles, a silent scream on her lips, but she slips below, into another hellish circle. The awful things so close now, intimate, the living fabric of the landscape she’s tearing through, except it’s also her own tissues, her flesh, and bone, and gristle. Her mind strains to find a lexis, an interpretation, anything to hold on to, but it fails and slips.

Beings of light and shadow, torn asunder into multitudes of fragments, eviscerated of their own essence, split from themselves, and then split again, their very nature broken and spliced, haphazardly, as if by a madman, or a toddler, or some awful, senseless cataclysm.

She no longer has the energy to scream. She tumbles down and down, into a cosmic void where time itself means nothing but the eternal agony of a ghastly disarrangement. And at the very bottom of the thing that has no end, no beginning, no up or down, only the single direction of _deeper_ into itself, Margo crashes against the truth, the thing that lurks beneath her world, on the ceiling at night, waiting to scuttle down and whisper into her ear its awful crooning lullaby.

 _You too, my Soul. A scattered sort of thing_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by Pink Floyd. 
> 
> Next up: a chat with Dorian


	33. Collusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dorian makes a most interesting discovery.

Margo never loses consciousness in the strict sense of the term, but she loses any coherent sense of self instead, tangled, and shattered, and recombined in awful, never ending multitudes. There is neither time, nor space, nor axes of coordinates. Nothing but a world of empty forms in permanent mutation.

Eons pass.

Slowly, pieces begin to coalesce together — though there isn't enough of her at first for that to matter. Self-awareness is the last thing to emerge. Something like a viewpoint condenses, and the agony of it makes her scream — a disembodied anguish that eventually translates into a ragged sound, a choked croak at the back of someone else's throat, overheard from a distance.

A throat presupposes a mouth. And a mouth presupposes a face. At least, under normal circumstances — the beings she glimpsed in the depths of the horror realm didn't exactly bother with such anatomical niceties. Once she remembers she has eyes — and where they should, in theory, be located — she tries to open them. Her eyelids feel glued together.

Something cold sprinkles her face. Whatever it is, it has the merit of confirming that she is, in fact, the proud possessor of said face — and that the face in question is probably part of a head, which, if she’s supremely lucky, might still be attached to a body. She wipes at the cold droplets. Aha. Hands, also accounted for.

She peels her eyes open, one, then the other.

The first thing that comes into focus is Dorian’s mustache.

“Oh good! And here I thought you’d never wake up. I was even beginning to feel awful about it.” He lifts a canteen and tilts it to Margo’s lips. She takes a sip and coughs spasmodically. “That was _quite_ the performance you and I orchestrated. Sadly, I’m afraid you missed Act II. As well as Act III, which, if I may say so myself, was especially memorable.”

“How long have I been out?” The voice is all wrong.

“About four hours.”

Four hours? How long is that? “What did I miss, then?” she manages, although it sounds like she is trying to expel a hairball.

Before he responds, Dorian loops his arm around Margo’s shoulders and helps her tilt into a sitting position. Her ribs scream in protest. The world spins, coming off kilter before righting itself. Right. Gravity. Up and down are not a cultural construct.

“Do keep your head elevated. It will help with the disorientation.” He hands her the canteen, and she takes a few gulps before returning it.

She looks around. They are seated in a tent. The air smells of old sweat, metal, animal hide, and some kind of aromatic. Myrrh, maybe. The sun dapples the canvas overhead with the shifting shadows of leaves. A soft breeze worries at the flap of fabric that serves as the door.

“Let’s see. What did you miss? Act II consisted of a very dashing attack by the heroes against their somewhat incapacitated foes. There was much sword swinging and head bashing. And spell casting, of course. Very gruesome. Blood everywhere, you know how it goes.There was also much babbling and erratic behavior on the part of the foes in question, which undoubtedly made our rapt audience of mountain goats and other wildlife wonder whether they were the spectators of a military epic or a comedy. In any event, our heroes acquitted themselves rather splendidly, only to be thwarted by a sudden and treacherous influx of villains. Which, my dear, brings us to Act III.”

Margo blinks. “Did anyone get injured in Act II?”

Dorian gives her a dazzling smile. “Of course! We wouldn’t wish for the suspense to fizzle, now would we? In fact, yours truly received a rather spectacular wound to his shoulder.” He shows off a muscled deltoid, complete with a narrow slash of discolored skin where the wound would have been. “Healed, of course, just in time for the last Act.”

Margo chuckles. “So, Act III?”

“Ah, yes. Act III did not disappoint. As our heroes floundered on the verge of defeat...” Dorian gestures with his hand, as if outlining an endless army of baddies, “...the Herald and all her retinue fell upon the villains in an intrepid offensive, which, as you no doubt surmised, resulted in a brilliant victory.”

Margo nods cautiously. If she’s here — and Dorian is cracking jokes about Evie’s “intrepidity” — does this mean that the fight proceeded well?

“I take it the play had a happy ending?” Margo asks, not quite daring to hope that there’s no bad news in store. Her heart beats heavily in her chest.

“By and large, a rather happy one.” Dorian’s gray eyes twinkle with humor. “Everyone is alive. Surprising, that. Our delightful dwarven companion — Scout Harding, that is, Varric is rather _less_ delightful with all his dubious barbs — and the impressively burly Blackwall were both injured, but not overly severely. The Warden, I should add, insisted on carrying your lifeless body all the way up the hill, despite his rather grisly leg wound. Very obliging of him, I thought. Solas is caring for them in the next tent over. The Iron Bull insists that none of his injuries are serious, even though he bore a suspicious resemblance to a pin cushion by the end of it. The Seeker looks like she could use a long restful sojourn by the Nevarran seaside. And our charming Madame Vivienne only suffered minor damage to her wardrobe, which, as I understand it, is injury enough as far as she’s concerned.”

“And Evie?”

“Oh, fine. I dare say the Herald did well for herself.” Dorian’s eyes narrow speculatively, and alarm bells start chiming quietly at the back of Margo’s mind. “Everyone else is alive and accounted for.”

“So… How did you get stuck caring for me?”

“Why, I volunteered, of course! I am, after all, the only specialist in the after-effects of necromancy spells.”

“You are a _necromancer_?” Margo squeaks. Whatever it might mean in Thedas, the first term her memory conjures up by association from some dusty back-drawer is “haruspicy.” Because nothing predicts the future quite like a set of fresh entrails. Unless, of course, this is well and truly death magic, but with a military application. Perhaps it involves controlling hordes of zombies? Hordes of zombies that follow orders would certainly come in handy.

“Actually, my focus is thaumaturgy. Hence my ability to displace some river water towards the location of your choice, as you no doubt recall. But yes. I do know a few spells from the much-reviled Nevarran specialty.” His lips twist in a sarcastic smirk. “I should add that I had to shoo away your shabbily dressed elven friend repeatedly — very insistent, that one, in a quiet, unassuming sort of way. And of course, Evie, Varric, and Blackwall were all preoccupied with your condition. Not to mention your Avvar associate, who offered to prepare my body for an offering to his heathen gods should I suddenly perish. I am still unsure whether this was his way of hinting at his new-found regard for me.”

Margo chuckles. Speaking of putting the dead to good use. “I think that’s actually a compliment, coming from him. From what I know of Amund, he only offers to dismember you when he thinks you're worth his time.”

“How flattering! In any event, I promised Evelyn to inform her of your state as soon as you woke up. Which brings me to my main point.” Dorian peers at her with quizzical speculation.

“What are you leading up to, Dorian?”

His eyes crinkle, and he leans in. He smells pleasantly of myrrh and autumn leaves, and less pleasantly of something ferrous, like old blood. “Tell me, my dear, do they know?” he whispers.

A shiver creeps down Margo’s spine. Do they know _what?_ About Evie? Has he figured it out, somehow? But which part? The luck vortex? Or the botched Tranquility rite?

“Do they know what?” she asks, echoing his hushed tone.

“That you’re not _quite_ what you appear initially?” he offers diplomatically.

Margo represses a startle, fear coiling in the pit of her stomach. “What do you mean? What do you think I am?” She congratulates herself on her casual tone.

“Technically?”

She nods.

"Let us say 'alive' in a rather unconventional way,” he says. “That is, your body died and came back to life. At first, I thought you might be a spirit, you see, animating a dead body. My training suggested as much, even if your current form does appear perfectly healthy now. 'Abomination' is so very loaded, of course, but for lack of another, more accurate term...” He becomes animated, an expression of irritable curiosity on his face. “Though I had never known an abomination to be amused by raunchy literature, so I reserved my judgment. Imagine my excitement at the chance to examine you while you were under the thrall of the horror spell. You are most certainly not a spirit in any conventional sense of the term. In fact, my dear, I believe you might have been _human,_ of all things — or at least something like it, give or take a few pesky details — which, in my humble opinion, is a rather unlikely occurrence considering the general shape of your ears and other aspects of your physique.”

Margo is frozen in place, a chill locking her muscles in a painful clutch. She wants to bolt, but she can’t, the dread at being discovered rooting her to the damn bedroll.

“Though that is not all of it! It would appear — and again, I am speculating here — that you have some facility with wandering around in the Fade. Yet your body does not have an inkling of magic. None at all. How such a thing is possible, I do not know. Regardless, you went too deep into the spell. It took an impressive effort to retrieve you safely. I even counseled the elven mage against attempting to seek you out — quite the expert on the Fade, that one, I am given to understand — which, I fear, he took as a personal affront to his skills.”

“So how _did_ you get me back?”

“I unraveled the spell, of course. From there, I suppose you wandered back on your own accord. I wasn't at all sure you would!”

He spreads his hands and smiles at her — and Margo tries to process his expression, but despite the string of revelations, it remains warm. No, not warm. Rather delighted, like he’s just discovered some new and fascinating phenomenon and is excited about the prospects of unlocking its mysteries. Which, she supposes, is not very far from the truth.

“So. Care to tell me who — or what — you are?”

Margo exhales slowly, trying to buy herself some time to think, but her thoughts scatter and clump together in a nonsensical mess. “I think I went deep because I inhaled the toxin,” she ventures. “I probably have some of Amund’s lichen still in my system, so the effect was likely compounded.”

“Yes, yes,” Dorian waves off her words with barely concealed impatience. "I've considered it, but by itself, this explanation is insufficient.”

“Very well.” She meets his gaze. She expects to find it guarded, but there is only genuine interest there. “I’m not exactly from Thedas.”

“You’re from _beyond_ Thedas? Did you come here by ship, then?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m from a different world altogether, Dorian.”

He stares at her in stunned silence, and then he claps his hands with a delighted “ha!” and follows it up with a theatrical little number, where he brings his finger to his lips, and looks around furtively. He proceeds in a theatrical whisper. “I knew it! Alexius and I theorized the possibility of multiple coexistent worlds years ago! But…” His eyes narrow at some new hitch in his model. “There remains the problem of _how._ Could it be that the Mortalitasi were partially correct all along? The displacement theory has never been demonstrated experimentally. Nothing was ever published on the subject in any reputable venue, in any case. I've heard rumors, of course, but pesky research ethics, yes? If this were confirmed, it would completely upturn several established theorems, you understand?”

Margo shakes her head. She does not, in fact, understand one bit. But Dorian appears to be neck-deep in a specialized academic argument with himself, and she knows better than to try to interfere with those.

“Forgive me, this is all very obscure to someone who lacks the specialized training, I’m sure. You see, Nevarrans assume that the soul of the recently dead displaces a spirit when it passes through the Fade on its way to... well. Wherever it is that souls go. The Mortalitasi — let’s ignore their political reputation for a minute — develop much of their magic from this premise. A displaced spirit can then be brought out of the Fade and into a specially prepared corpse. A lot of this is tradition and, frankly, ritualistic behavior, in my opinion — but don't argue about traditions with a Nevarran Mortalitasi. In any event, a _spirit_ may reenter. Not another soul. Clearly, this is where the theory appears to diverge from practice. Was another spirit involved in your arrival?”

Margo turns Dorian’s model around in her head. The wrathful thing that passed her as she fell through the proverbial looking glass had also, presumably, killed — and perhaps briefly possessed — Maile. What had Amund said in the Avvar prison? Something about trading places with a mad god?

“I don’t know for sure. I think I died in my world, before getting sucked into this one, into a body that died… simultaneously? And yes, there was a spirit.” Margo pauses, uncomfortable. “Or, more likely, a demon.” She clears her throat, not liking Dorian’s suddenly tense expression. “But I think it went the other way, for what it’s worth.” She frowns. Is that thing still wandering around somewhere, wearing her body? Or did it maybe get taken down by the authorities and spirited away to some secret government lab? No pun intended...

She is distracted from her thoughts on a hypothetical Area 51 by the alchemical connection she had previously failed to fully articulate to herself. “Come to think of it, I believe the event might have been partially triggered by a plant toxin that somehow pulled me here. Apparently, through the Fade.”

Dorian taps his chin in contemplation. “Fascinating. A three-way swap. Do you have the Fade where you come from?”

And then, of course, Margo is stunned into silence by a blinding flash of insight. _Could_ it be that the Fade is, in fact, a truly universal phenomenon? And a collective one? Perhaps under some very specific conditions? And what would the implications of such a thing be?

Her mind churns with the possibilities. There are certainly plenty of stories in Earth’s many mythologies that seek to account for the disappearance of magic from the world, usually as a matter of waning belief, but not always. Sometimes, it is stolen, typically by some trickster figure.

She shakes her head, more in consternation than in denial. Surely, there had never been a _Fade_ in her world, or anything like it. She forces herself to return to the topic at hand. Dorian’s question had been more specific. Does her world have the Fade? “Not as such. And certainly no magic, at least not like it is here.”

The mage’s eyes widen. “Incredible! Then your translocation must have required an enormous amount of energy to execute. If you don’t mind me asking, who were you back in your world? Perhaps the key lies there?”

Margo chuckles. “A historian of Early Modern science, but my last project was on botanical trade routes between...” she trails off. Dorian probably doesn't need to know all that.

The mage offers her a dazzling smile. “A fellow researcher! I _knew_ there was something I liked about you. And your name truly is Margo Duvalle, then?” He arranges himself into a more comfortable position, and steeples his fingers under his chin. “Your world must not be radically distinct from ours if the naming conventions run parallel.”

She shrugs. “There are, in fact, some surprising similarities. We look a lot like you, for one, which is odd, if you think about it.”

“So. Who else knows? Cassandra? The Herald, surely?”

Margo shakes her head. “Amund. And Solas.”

If he is surprised, he doesn’t let on. “Ah, of course. That would certainly explain... Funny, I had wondered why our resident elven mage evinced such zealous interest in your well-being. I thought that perhaps he rather fancies you.” He winks. Margo schools her face into a mask of bland neutrality, but apparently she overdoes it with the bland. Dorian’s eyes widen in surprise. “He _does_ fancy you! Or perhaps, rather, you fancy _him?_ So the rather nondescript… what do you southerners call it? Apostate... caught your eye? Oh, forgive me. You’re _not,_ in fact, a southerner, are you?” His expression turns speculative. “Wait a moment. How _does_ this work? Do you also have elves in your world?”

Margo squirms, but shakes her head. She supposes that “folklore” doesn’t count. And it’s not a bad question, when posed like that. How _does_ it work?

“This question of cross-species attraction is such an intriguing one to me, you see. More so without any prior familiarity on your end... Tell me. Is it the ears?”

Margo feels a treacherous blush creep up her cheeks. She actually stopped noticing the ears — aside from the convenient way in which they sometimes telegraph emotions. The differences no longer seem all _that_ relevant. Damn observant Vint naturally notices her predicament and chortles. “Now I really do wonder, _is_ it mutual? What do you think he sees you as — a human? A spirit? An elf? How positively curious!”

Margo firmly diverts her mind from Dorian’s speculations, and narrows her eyes in a disapproving squint. “Aren’t we getting off track? You were interrogating me over my abominable nature.”

“Abominable?” He shoos the term away like an annoying fly. “You, my dearest, are a scientific mystery! A most unlikely, miraculous proof of a very unpopular theory! Have I mentioned that unpopular theories are my specialty? As to ‘interrogating,’ it sounds so very crass, doesn’t it? No, no — I prefer my research subjects to be willing and eager.”

Another brilliant smile. Is he flirting with her? Or is he, in fact, announcing that he is planning to deploy her as a lab rat? If they’re on the subject of fancying, she’d bet a good chunk of her meager and sporadic salary that the fellow is angling for a certain tall horned creature with a considerable sword. Speaking of the mysteries of cross-species attraction.

Lab rat seems more likely. And speaking of rodents... “Are you going to rat me out?”

“And risk you dragged to the righteous pyre by some overeager Chantry idiot? Perish the thought!” His expression turns sly. “But I do think we can be of mutual utility. Which, as I am sure you are aware, is the basis of all solid friendships.” He sounds rather bitter when he says it.

“I don't think you actually believe that.”

“Very perceptive. I do not, in fact. And neither do many of my countrymen, despite what they like to profess.”

“So…” Margo trails off. Some of the paralyzing fear has receded, but there are still innumerable ways this could go badly for her.

“So.” Dorian smiles. “I wasn’t idly commenting on our fellow companions’ concern for you. You seem to have managed to garner some influence — or, at least, some regard — which, I suspect, will only grow after our fortuitous victory over the rampaging templars. We _are_ the unlikely heroes of the hour, you and I.”

“It was a team effort,” Margo parries cautiously.

“Of course it was, but do not diminish _our_ contribution. I cannot abide false modesty.”

“Can you abide _real_ modesty, Dorian?”

His laugh is warm and rich. “Of course not! A most vapid affectation if ever there was one.”

Margo chuckles despite herself. It’s hard not to like him. “So, what are you planning to do about your new… insights?”

“Oh, pester you with endless questions, for one. And, in exchange, impart my considerable knowledge of magic, politics, fine wine, salacious literature, or any other important topic of mutual interest.”

“Where’s the other shoe?”

He frowns. “Shoe, my dear?”

“The one that’s about to drop.”

He chuckles again, and Margo is glad the expression translates to Common. “Well, not a shoe, exactly. At most, a sandal. A slipper, even? I do have one favor to ask you.” His face turns serious once again. “While you were sleeping, our fearless leaders have decided that they will seek out the support of the templars. I believe as a result of this last battle, although it is beyond me to follow the particular acrobatics their logic must have executed to land on that particular conclusion.” His brows furrow in worry. “That leaves the Redcliffe mages at the mercy of Alexius, and I, for one, am still committed to remedying their situation as best I can.”

Margo waits for him to continue.

“You have the Herald's ear, do you not? Convince your Inquisition it is a worthy cause, will you? At least to send some surreptitious help. Perhaps we will be able to sneak some of the mages out from under Alexius’s nose.”

Margo frowns, the fear returning with dividends. One giant shoe, coming right up. Dare she say, a boot? “Dorian, I have to ask. Is this blackmail? If I fail, will you reveal what you learned to the others?”

The mage’s gaze turns steely. There is a long pause before he speaks. “Despite what you might have heard, not all of my compatriots are duplicitous soulless bastards who worship nothing but their own ego and who will stop at nothing in pursuit of their goals. So, no. My request does not have ‘teeth,’ if that is your concern. But if you cannot see the ethical merits of helping the mages, then perhaps I have misjudged you.”

Margo shakes her head. It’s a sad state of affairs when she’s more worried about his disapproval than his potential to blow her cover. “I know. Dorian… I’m in an awkward situation, as you can imagine.”

He nods, waving the nascent apology away. “Accepted, forgotten. I have sprung this on you at an inopportune moment, but you _must_ understand how crucial this is, yes? The sort of magic I suspect has been unleashed in Redcliffe is highly unstable. Worse still, Alexius _himself_ is unstable. I do not wish to see more innocents get caught in the crossfire between him and all the other power-grasping idiots you have around here.”

Margo nods. What else can she do? She’d try it even without the non-threat of blackmail.

“Splendid! And on that note, shall we emerge and receive our well-deserved accolades? Or, minimally, partake in whatever passes for the noonday meal?” Dorian’s expression turns sly again. “I'm sure a number of our companions are just _dying_ of curiosity about what you and I might have been doing in this tent for all this time, what with all the giggling and hushed whispers. If you wind up accused of collusion with Tevinter magisters, I apologize in advance.”

Margo smirks despite herself. Fine. Maybe this isn’t the worst thing that could have happened. And it would be nice to have someone else with whom she can put her guard down. “If you’re afraid of nationalist slander, we could put on a show for them instead. Want to make inappropriate noises? That’ll confirm their stereotype of me, and deflect from their stereotype of you.”

He feigns shock, but his lips twitch in amusement. “You have a very subversive streak, my dear. I think I like it. I suppose it might encourage _some_ people to take an interest. Herd mentality and what have you. How convincing can you make it sound?”

She ignores the question and cocks an eyebrow. “Certain horned people, then?”

Dorian makes a face. "Oh, do not smirk, it’s unbecoming. I am simply… intrigued, you could say. Regardless. Think of this little revelation as a peace offering of sorts, in the interest of our budding friendship. I did pry about your rather inexplicable taste in elven men, after all.” He begins to straighten from his cross-legged position. “And on that note, I do not relish the idea of your performatively self-effacing elf needling me half to death with pointed political commentary — especially not in misplaced retaliation for diverting your presumably fickle favor. Though who could blame you? I _am_ much better dressed.” He winks, and Margo rolls her eyes. “In any case, let us not feed the beast, yes?”

Oh, she doesn’t need another compulsive teaser to join Varric’s ranks, on top of all the other complications. At this point the complications of her complications are having a whole new progeny of baby complications, scuttling every which way. “He’s not _my_ anything, Dorian.”

The mage chuckles. “Good. Stay away from the claims of ownership. Those never end well. Shall we?”

Margo follows him out of the tent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by haruspicy, which is the practice of using the entrails (in particular the liver) of sacrificial animals to divine the future.
> 
> Next up: Counting crows, negotiating tricky emotional waters, and returning to Haven.


	34. Nevemore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Margo brews some potions; navigates tricky emotional waters, ponders leeches, ravens, and other critters; and has a heretical conversation about the nature of love.

There are, indeed, accolades, which Dorian receives with the air of someone long since comfortable with double-edged praise, the kind that hides a dagger of mockery up its sleeve. The northerner meets their companions' more honest variety with disarmingly performative arrogance.

They wander over to the campfire, where Varric greets them with a toothy grin. “Oh-ho, Prickly! Now, there’s a sight for sore eyes. Guess Asher owes me a sovereign. He wagered you wouldn’t make it.”

The dwarf stands up and throws his arms wide with a little "give us a hug" wave of his hands that puts Margo in mind of an Italian mafia boss. She walks over, vaguely ambivalent over whether the embrace is an expression of genuine joy at her survival, or of equal pleasure at having won the bet. Likely, both. Varric gives her back a few pats, the stubble on his jaw scraping against her cheek. “Chat later, yeah?” he says quietly into her ear. When she straightens from the hug, his face is hidden behind his usual sardonic mask, but his amber eyes are serious when they meet hers. She gives him a small nod.

The next show of approval is from The Iron Bull, who strolls over to Margo and, before she can properly react, smacks her on the back with such force that she staggers under the impact. “Well done, Blondie. Glad you made it. That little trick you and Dorian pulled was _nice_.” The skin around his eyes crinkles with a smile, and it’s the first time in a while where Margo feels like there’s no background agenda to his utterance. She also notices there is no ambiguous come-on — nothing there but uncomplicated soldierly camaraderie.

Bull’s gaze flicks from her to the mage, lingering for a few seconds too long. “So, Dorian, that water trick. That was pretty clever. Can you move other stuff like that?"

Dorian's eyebrows quirk. "Such as?"

"Say, could you lift _me_?”

The mage's lips twitch in a suppressed smirk, but he raises his hand to tap his chin in a display of speculation. "Are you proposing I use you as a projectile? If so, I am certain Cullen could be talked into building you a special catapult.”

"Nah. Unwieldy, and too dependent on terrain. Plus the aiming wastes time. See, having the enemy under you — that gives you a strategic advantage. Better angle." The Qunari rolls his shoulders —to spectacular effects — a calculated slyness creeping into his voice. "Catapults are inefficient for quick maneuvers. I'm thinking — broader range of applications, stealth encounters, that sort of thing."

Dorian valiantly ignores the not so subtle innuendo. "If you believe the enemy would overlook a hovering Qunari, I think you might be harboring unrealistic ideas about your size." \Despite his sardonic squint, a blush darkens his cheeks.

"Oh, I have a good sense of my size."

Dorian clears his throat. "I suppose that higher elevation would make you prime arrow bait, but I find that you accomplish that perfectly well already."

"People don't tend to look up unless you make them," Bull shrugs impassibly. "Besides, I got thick skin. Varric, got more cups?” he waves a flask over at the dwarf.

Varric examines an assortment of dishes laid out on a rag in front of him, no doubt pilfered from the late templars. Who, no doubt, pilfered them from someone else.

“These ones look clean enough,” Varric trails, and then Margo and Dorian are handed two silver-plated goblets, which Bull fills with a murky liquid. He tops off the dwarf’s tin mug as well.

“Bottoms up,” he instructs, gesturing with the flask.

Margo considers the wisdom of chugging what smells like pure ethanol on an empty stomach, but it’s not like she’s got anything better to do — or much choice in the matter, considering Bull's threateningly encouraging glower.

Dorian sniffs the liquid suspiciously.

“What’s wrong, Dorian? Too strong for your taste? Want me to dilute it for you?”

“Since I doubt that diluting it would improve the gustatory properties of whatever _this_ is, and it would only protract the unpleasantness, I think I’ll just have to make do.”

Bull nods approvingly. “Good man. Now, drink up. To Victory!”

Margo takes the shot, which burns all the way down and keeps on burning once settled. “Where is everyone?” she asks, blinking tears from her eyes.

“Well, Prickly, while you were sleeping it off, our odd Avvar associate insisted that we needed to investigate what happened to the ravens.” Varric gestures uphill. “The Seeker, Her Heraldship, and the Iron Lady went off with him, so they’re somewhere up there counting crows.”

Right. The mysteriously vanishing birds. She had almost forgotten about them. In the meantime, Varric continues.

“Buttercup’s taking a nap — after she ate about half of our provisions. Hero and Freckles are in the infirmary tent over there with Chuckles. Gloomy is taking inventory.”

Margo concludes that Freckles must be Scout Harding, and, by process of elimination, Hero is the Warden and Gloomy is Asher.

“You mean he’s looting,” Dorian quips.

“No, Sparkler. Looting is just grabbing things haphazardly and hoping you end up with something valuable. Taking inventory is all about writing reports about what to grab, what not to grab, what grabbed you back, and what is currently in demand in Orlais.”

“Yeah. Looting’s actually _fun_ ,” Iron Bull interjects.

Margo sets her goblet next to Varric and winces at the sudden stab of pain in her ribs. It feels like something in her side has decided to rearrange itself into a configuration that is altogether unaccommodating to her internal organs. She supposes the elfroot potion is now entirely out of her system. Apparently, it failed to fix all of the damage from the shield bash.

Varric’s eyes narrow at her sharp inhalation. “Better stop by the infirmary and have Chuckles take a look at you, huh?”

Margo tries to determine whether the dwarf is about to embark on one of his bouts of mortifying double-entendres, but he just gives her a weirdly pointed look, returns his attention to his cup, sets it aside, and then extracts a well-worn deck of cards from his pocket.

“All right, you two. Might as well kill some time. Wicked Grace? Or Diamondback?”

Margo leaves them to the cards and walks over towards the infirmary tent, trying to rein in the anxious fluttering in her stomach. She almost groans in frustration. Apparently, she can carry a bomb and detonate it not ten feet away from herself, survive the mother of all bad trips, and ingest random flora at the suggestion of a grumpy shaman-type with an incomprehensible cosmology and a penchant for language games, but _this_ makes her nervous. Well, then. Maybe next time she can give swooning a shot.

The inside of the tent is sweltering hot, and the heatwave hits Margo as soon as she lifts the flap of fabric that serves as the door. She is greeted by the smell of elfroot, magic, and blood. She takes in her surroundings.

The heat is coming off a circular fire pit full of coals. The first thing she notices is Blackwall — although that is not technically accurate. The first thing she notices is a humanoid mountain of muscles, scar tissue, and hair that she then identifies as Blackwall. He sits on a bedroll, in nothing but a pair of homespun trousers of undecided color. One of his legs is heavily bandaged, the trousers split down a side seam to accommodate the bulky wrappings.

On another bedroll Lace Harding, also in a state of partial undress, cranes her neck to examine her wounded shoulder.

And then, of course, she spots Solas. Margo blinks in mild consternation, because she suddenly realizes that, before this moment, she only had a very approximate idea of what his physique might look like under all those layers of tastefully neutral knits. He is down to a simple short-sleeve gray tunic, which rather helps solve some of that mystery. Margo gives herself a mental thwack. She’s a grown woman. She is certainly old enough to be able to have a healthy aesthetic appreciation for a well-proportioned back and lean musculature without getting fluttery over it. Right. So much for the riddle of cross-species attraction.

Solas turns around, his eyes narrowing slightly at the sight of her. Their gazes do their now habitual odd little hitch, where it becomes hard to look away without applying a good dose of will to it.

“Lethallan,” he says quietly. Margo plasters a friendly smile —shoddy DYI job if there ever was one — over the sudden vertigo in the pit of her stomach at the sound of his voice.

Ok, this dance has to stop. A categorical “no” to swooning. Healthy and reasonable emotional responses from here on out.

Fortunately, Harding’s greeting helps distract Margo from the viscous helplessness of the impending and rather inopportune emotional maelstrom.

“Hey! Good to see you up and about. Dorian said the spell had affected you pretty badly.”

Margo returns the scout's smile. “I’m fine. I guess I missed all the action, though. Everyone all right?” She casts a glance at Solas, who is finishing up dressing Harding’s shoulder.

“We arrived just in time to break the siege, but by the third wave of the sorry bastards, we were out of health potions,” Blackwall rumbles, flexing and unflexing his hand as he examines a tanned, hairy forearm. Another bandage holds the wrist straight. “Could’ve gone worse. Without you and Dorian decommissioning that second batch, your team would’ve gotten overrun eventually. We would have arrived too late.” He grumbles something unflattering under his breath.

“The skirmish was intense, and I could not pause to repair the wounds in the midst of battle.” Margo’s expression must be puzzled, because after a quick glance at her, Solas volunteers a further explanation. “The potency of healing magic wanes the longer an injury remains untreated. It becomes necessary to dress such wounds in the more mundane fashion before attempting further healing. I am, however, no field medic.” He turns back to the bandage. “It is good you woke when you did. This work will be much easier with elfroot tonics.” His lips quirk into a little smile, and Margo kicks the warm and fuzzies firmly under the rug. She’s not even sure what their status is, at this point. He did ask her to give him some time to reflect on their… entanglement.

“The dressings are fine, Solas.” Harding gives her shoulder a tentative roll and winces. “Damn templar really got me, though, Void take him. That’s my drawing hand. Anyway, our field alchemist is back, so it won’t be all on you. Besides, we should be heading to Haven as soon as we work out what happened to our ravens.”

Margo takes a few steps forward. Someone has bothered to stack all the empty potion vials in one corner of the tent. She’s got her work cut out for her.

“You’re favoring your left side,” Blackwall comments. “And your breathing is shallow. Ribs? Or collarbone?”

Margo winces, touching her ribcage gingerly. “Ribs, I think. A templar got me with a shield bash.”

Blackwall harrumphs under his breath. “A common mistake. Made you open up, and got you with the edge, right? Remind me to work on that next time we train.”

Solas turns to her again. “Sit. Let me examine you.”

Margo peels her armor off and takes a seat on the remaining bedroll. The elf crouches in front of her and gestures for her to lift her tunic. Considering how much of her he’s already “examined,” this should certainly not cause any particular trepidation, but… well. If her breathing was shallow before…

She lifts the hem, and his cool fingers gently prod the side of her ribs. Even the bare ghost of a touch is painful. She looks down. There is a spectacular haematoma spreading across her ribcage. The skin is mottled with interesting shades of purple, black, and blue. There’s even some yellow.

“It’s colorful,” she winces.

“There are several fractures.” Solas’s tone is unmistakably disapproving. “You took a restorative, yes? The healing potion should have remedied this better. It is curious that it did not.”

Margo frowns, filing this new information away for later examination. Could it be that something about the lichen serves as an antagonist to the elfroot? And then, before she can ponder the thought further, Solas puts his hands against her skin and the now perfectly familiar tingle of his magic sinks into her bones. It’s not exactly unpleasant, but it is profoundly strange, like ants crawling on the inside of her skin.

Her eyes dart to his face. “Can we talk later?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper. She wants to find out what is happening with Evie. And perhaps ask about the nightmare. And get his take on the missing ravens. Only this and nothing more. Just good old information gathering. Right.

He nods and mouths an “of course, lethallan.” And then he trails his thumb along one of her upper ribs — presumably to check for residual damage. Except that now that the bones are healed, Margo has difficulty keeping the sensation firmly within a medical register. She shudders and looks up at him again. Solas’s gaze is intense before he averts it, but his lips part a little on a soft exhale. And then he snaps himself out of it and gets up promptly, with just the trace of a frown.

Why is this tent so absurdly hot anyway? Are they trying to build a sauna? Margo straightens her tunic and glances at the others. No one is giving her knowing or smirking looks. She concludes that her little exchange with the elf was inconspicuous enough.

When in doubt, busy yourself with work. The potions aren’t going to brew themselves.

~~~

By the time she has enough botanical mass to begin a new batch of tonics, her stomach is rumbling. The sun is bright overhead, and even the wildlife previously busy nosing around at the edges of the grassy meadow has retreated for a nap. Or just gotten bored and wandered off.

She’s not often alone — even when no one is directly beside her, this new life constantly surrounds her with people, a world crowded and teeming in ways that her previous existence wasn’t. It’s not the amount of people, exactly. Rather, it is as if the local denizens exceed their invisible encasement, taking up space usually left neutral, their attention focused outward rather than within. Come to think of it, it might be the lack of smartphones.

There are exceptions. Blackwall, for example. And Solas, she supposes. Both men share a similar quality, a split focus that reroutes at least some of their attention inward, as if both are carefully keeping something of themselves locked away, mindful not to spill it into communal space for others to see. It’s the opposite strategy from Varric and Dorian, who show too much — she suspects as a kind of decoy.

She lifts her sack of elfroot, checking it for weight. That last dozen plants she dug up on the eastern side of the meadow looked a bit different from the rest, didn't it? It would be useful to devise some kind of test to check for the variation in efficacy between individual plants — and between elfroot subspecies. Minimally, to see if it's possible that some batches of potion turn out to be duds on their own, or whether the lichen really does interfere with absorption. And to see which parts of the plant contain more active substances, and at what phase of their life cycle. Unfortunately, without a mass spectrometer, she has no way of doing this outside of good old empirical observation. And without catching some mice or frogs, and injecting the poor bastards with extracts at different levels of concentration, there's no way to get anything close to reliable data. Maybe nugs could work as a laboratory animal, but where would she keep them? No, she needs something more portable. A simpler life form. Does Thedas have leeches?

Margo is tying up the burlap sack, still pondering leeches when a figure materializes next to her. She was either so lost in thought that she didn’t hear him approach, or he snuck up.

“Lethallan.” Solas is leaning on his staff, a warm but slightly abstracted smile on his lips.

Margo registers the nickname. They are alone — and as far as his choice of endearments seems to be carefully calibrated, the decision to use what she identifies as a friendly moniker should be interpreted as relevant. So, no “ma’nas” anymore? She swallows back a sudden lump in her throat.

“Solas." It comes out perfectly amiable, and Margo winces internally. It seems that every interaction in this world requires dissimulation, teaching her to carefully choreograph an emotional performance that hits the exact right social note. She doesn’t particularly like it. She has always prided herself on being direct. Not rude, but also not one to sidestep a complicated conversation. But now the masks snap on with increasing ease, like something magnetized. And really, it’s the fact that she would wear the mask with Solas, of all people, that claws at her with an indefinable sense of loss.

“I had thought that we could talk on your way back to camp,” he offers, his voice mild.

“Of course,” Margo nods, and she hoists the burlap sack over her shoulder. He lifts her knapsack, slinging it to his back.

She mouths a thank you, and they begin their slow progress through the meadow.

“Tell me about Evie,” Margo asks, since that seems like the most relevant — and, incidentally, safest — topic.

She catches the briefest of frowns, as if the request is not quite what he had expected. He mulls over her words. “The Herald is much improved, however temporarily.”

She casts Solas a quick glance, and his expression seems expectant. “You have a theory as to why that is, yes? It does seem that we did remarkably well for ourselves this time around.”

“I do. I believe the Seeker’s abilities to suppress magic disrupt the luck siphon, as we had theorized.” He pauses. They walk in silence for a few seconds, nothing but the rustle of grass and the buzzing of invisible insects to accompany them. “There is another matter,” he finally says.

Margo looks over. There is a twinkle of intellectual inquisitiveness in his eyes, as if he is trying to solve an intriguing theoretical puzzle, and Margo smiles despite the strange emotional heaviness at the edges of her awareness. A feeling she is not ready to examine until she is alone again.

“You have discovered something interesting,” she notes instead.

“Perhaps. The Herald’s mind appears sharper for some time after each suppression. Her speech is clearer and less erratic. I suspect it is because whatever ritual sought to sever her connection to the Fade — or whatever had restored it — twisted something in the process. And the connection she now has is damaged.”

Margo’s eyes widen in surprise. So Evie’s slightly jumbled speech might be an effect of a mangled link to the Fade, and not just a matter of Bann Trevelyan’s shitty parenting. What is the connection between the Fade and linguistic ability? Is the Fade what accounts for her own linguistic fluency? Is it pure hardware memory — a byproduct of Maile's own knowledge — or something more specific to whatever her spirit or essence contains? Or some truly freaky case of semiotic convergence? The last possibility seems the most outlandish of the lot.

A question for another day. She considers how the templar dispelled Dorian’s horror blast with his “proud fisherman” gesture. “So, let me get this straight. Templars and Seekers have similar skills, whereby they can suppress magic by disrupting a mage’s connection to the Fade?”

“Precisely. All magic is born of that connection, and, therefore, when it is disrupted, a mage’s casting comes unraveled.”

Margo frowns, trying to puzzle out the implications. “I have seen this work to annul a spell. What are the effects when applied to a mage? Is it painful? Or debilitating?”

“It is both,” he offers, his voice clipped.

“But it has the opposite effect on Evie?”

Solas shrugs, but he smiles as his gaze finds hers again, and Margo has to look away. Some things really don’t belong in mixtures. For instance, signals. She focuses her eyes on a strangely shaped shrub ahead. It looks like a Joshua Tree with an identity crisis “So. Off the top of my head, this brings me to two possible scenarios,” she tries, because, when in doubt, analyze things within an inch of their life until they cry for mercy.

“Oh?” The smile still lurks in his voice. “Shall we compare our conclusions?” He appears pleased with this turn to the conversation. Well, whatever else they are, the intellectual camaraderie remains intact, at least.

“Did Cassandra’s annulment have any consequences for the magic in Evie’s mark?” she asks, and then waves her free hand back and forth to specify which mark she means.

“That had been my question also, and, from what I could gather, it does not.”

Margo considers this. “So the two marks” — she taps her forehead, then waves her hand again — “are, as far as we can tell, operating somewhat independently of each other. Either that, or Cassandra’s power is just strong enough to affect one, but not the other.”

“It would appear so.” He sounds relieved by this. She supposes it is, indeed, good news. As long as Evie’s ability to close the rifts — and, eventually, the Hellmouth — remains unaffected, the suppression can be used to everyone’s benefit.

“Is Evie set on bringing the templars in? Presumably under Cassandra’s influence?”

“She is. I too supported the decision. It is the more judicious choice, all other things being equal. If suppression does not affect the Mark yet remedies the Herald’s other predicament, the templars are indeed the safer allies.”

Right. On the one hand, anything that manages to dampen the vortex of doom, especially at a critical moment — like, say, closing the Hellmouth — is excellent news. On the other hand, there is the prospect of a bunch of heavily armed dudes, hooked on lyrium and full of religious fervor, joining an organization called the Inquisition. What a splendid idea. Who doesn’t like a good Crusade every once in a while?

They walk in silence for a moment.

“Solas…” She really should just bite the bullet and ask. All things being equal, as the elf said, it is better to know. The only thing worse than being spontaneously reclassified into the platonic category is to not know whether you’ve been “platonized.”

“Yes, lethallan?”

The endearment shouldn’t feel like a punch to the gut — it’s a perfectly nice one, as far as Margo can understand its linguistic applications — but… well.

“Dorian,” she says instead. “He’s figured out what I am.”

Solas stops. Margo’s momentum carries her forward for another few steps, then she comes to a halt as well, and turns around to face him.

“And how much has he learned of your situation?” She can’t quite read his expression, but his grip on his staff is white-knuckled.

“A good chunk. There wasn’t much to be done about it.”

Solas turns away, eyebrows drawn in a frown. Margo plops the sack of elfroot on the ground in front of her and watches him pace.

“I feared that this would happen. I offered to locate you. I was not confident I could, considering my previous attempts had failed. And in the end, I thought it safer if the Tevinter mage undid his spell instead.”

Margo shrugs. “For what it’s worth, he took it rather well.”

Solas’s eyes narrow. “The more people uncover your secret, the greater the danger.” His voice is carefully neutral, but there is, underneath the concerned tone, the trace of a hard edge.

“I guess for now he finds me too interesting — or too useful — to report me.” This sounds worse than it is. “Besides, I actually think he’s a good man,” Margo amends.

There is a long pause. “Has he asked for anything in exchange for his discretion?”

Margo picks up the sack, and starts walking again, the elf falling in step beside her. Somehow it’s easier when they are moving, and not facing off.

“No. But he thinks I might be able to persuade the Inquisition to smuggle some mages out of Redcliffe. He is worried about this Alexius’s hostile takeover. Apparently, not all mages were on board with being annexed by Tevinter.” Margo watches a creature that looks like a fennec fox hightail it to the copse of trees at the side of the meadow. “But I think he overestimates my influence.”

Solas shakes his head once. “Perhaps not. You have the Harald’s ear, and some sway with Cassandra by virtue of our shared knowledge of Evelyn’s unique predicament. And, if it came to it, Commander Rutherford owes you a favor.” He muses over something before continuing. “The Spymaster might feel some sympathy for the mages’ plight. It is my understanding that she once was close to the Hero of Ferelden. A mage himself, if the stories are to be trusted.”

There had been something about Torquemada’s outburst to Evie that had felt very _personal_ indeed, for lack of a better word. Could it have something to do with this Hero of Ferelden?

She steals a glance at the elf. “For a ‘humble apostate,’ you certainly pay careful attention to the political pressure points.”

He chuckles softly. “A necessary survival skill. Especially for an apostate.” Then the quiet smile is replaced by a considerably more stormy expression. “Whoever is sent on that mission will be unlikely to succeed... or to return alive.” He stops, and Margo takes one more step, then follows suit. “Lethallan, I…”

She forces herself to meet his gaze. When, precisely, did she turn into such a coward? But he is the one to look away first, eyes on the sky, trained in the direction of where the Hellmouth would be if they were closer to Haven.

“What will you do if we succeed in sealing the Breach? Have you considered your less immediate future, I wonder? Remaining with the Inquisition may not be the safest course of action.”

Margo blinks. As a matter of fact, she _hadn’t_ given it a single thought, too busy to make it through each day to form plans beyond momentary survival. And, incidentally, summarily avoiding the possibility that, at some point, she will have to face the music and address head-on the long-term practical aspects of establishing a new life as a multiverse migrant. She considers the can of worms. Maybe it can go under the rug, too. What’s one more thing?

“I’m not sure what my alternatives are, to be honest. Open up a nice apothecary shop somewhere? Peddle love potions and contraceptives to Orlesian nobles? Not a bad business plan, now that I think of it...” She chuckles to herself. “I suppose I could try to get a job at a university, though I doubt they’d find my credentials convincing. Or maybe I could go off and study Avvar plant lore in some highland village. I’m sure Amund would approve.”

The elf gives her a curious look but says nothing.

“And you?” Margo deflects. “Are you planning to stay? After the Breach is closed, that is, provided we survive that long? If I understand correctly what the Inquisition is, being an apostate affiliated with a religious organization historically hostile to magic is either the safest or the most dangerous place to be.”

His lips quirk in amusement. “For a humble rogue, you certainly pay much attention to the political undercurrents.”

Margo stills, parsing his statement. She is _not_ , in fact, a rogue. At least, not originally. He knows that. And he knows that she knows that he knows. Is he trying to tell her something about his own apostate status? Or is this nothing more than a convenient parallelism?

“I wish I could say it’s a survival skill, but I think it has more to do with professional deformation,” she ventures, leaving the statement deliberately ambiguous.

Solas gives her a long, inscrutable look. “I suspect that it will serve you well regardless,” he offers. “But to answer your question, I am... uncertain. I suppose I would have to survive first, as you said yourself, although our prospects in that regard appear modestly improved.”

All right. This is as good a time as any. “Solas…”

He looks at her expectantly. Ok. She should just get this out of the way. But it feels like there is a sudden chasm beneath their feet, some kind of hidden depth that, if you stare at it too long, just might flip you the bird. Still. Margo steels herself…“I wanted to ask you about the horror spell.”

Forget ostriches. Noble birds, ostriches. This is falling squarely into that particular avian species that goes _bawk bawk bawk_.

“Of course. I would be curious to learn more. You mentioned you had used a herb to alter your experience of the Fade. In my travels I discovered that ancient elves had recourse to many plants which allowed them to manipulate and fine-tune their Dreaming.”

She nods. Of course. Using botanicals to induce altered states — a fine tradition, the multiverse over. “There was a… layer, for lack of a better word, where the visions were quite distinct. I’m sure it was all a hallucination, so I apologize if this will sound trite to you.” She clears her throat, suddenly embarrassed.

“There is nothing trite about the Fade.” His tone is rather flinty.

“Fair.” She forges on. “The other visions had been equally unpleasant. Corpses, damaged bodies, the sort of standard image of a hellish realm. But this last bit… The beings there were also mangled, but they weren’t human. No, that’s not quite it. They had personhood, I think —they just weren’t embodied.” She grasps for words, trying to capture their elusive qualia. “I thought that they were spirits, or something like it. And they were disarticulated from each other and themselves. As if scattered into pieces that constantly recombined, but in patterns that were senseless.” She exhales in frustration. “No, not senseless. Unstable, maybe, as if they couldn't fit right. It felt...” Margo shakes her head and huffs a dismissive laugh. “You know how these things are. It felt like some transcendental truth, but it is probably just rubbish.” She waves her hand at the unwieldy thought. “Never mind me. We have more pressing issues than dissecting my hallucinations.”

She casts the elf a quick glance, and freezes, because Solas’s expression is nowhere near the sort of mildly irritated puzzlement she expects from someone who just had to listen to a tedious recounting of a bad trip. Instead, he is pale as a ghost, a strange shadow flickering in his eyes. His lips part around some as-of-yet unformulated thought, and then he presses them firmly into a grim line. His face shutters behind a neutral mask.

“I am unsure,” he offers, and for the first time it occurs to Margo that he might not be telling the truth. Or not the whole truth, at least. “And from your nightmare did you glean the cause behind these beings’ suffering?”

She shrugs, now on her guard. “Some kind of cataclysm? An ecological catastrophe, perhaps? It’s hard to say. You know how dreams have their own logic.”

“They do indeed.” He is quiet for a long time before he resumes. “Let me reflect on this further. Perhaps we will revisit it again once I have some insight?”

“Of course,” Margo responds, stifling an inward sigh. He offers no further interpretation, and so she keeps the nightmare’s claim about her own scattered status to herself. No point in muddying the waters. They’re muddy enough as it is.

By the time they get to the camp, you could cut the tense silence with a knife.

~~~

She can hear the din of conversation even before they enter the camp proper. The entire party is gathered around the campfire.

She spots Evie first. The kid jumps up at the sight of her and practically runs down the slope to greet them.

“You’re all right!” she exclaims, and Margo barely manages to drop the sack of elfroot before being throttled by a very enthusiastic Herald. They hug it out, and then Evie steps back and gives Margo a quick once-over. Her blue eyes seem… sharper, somehow. More focused. The awkwardness to her movements has diminished, too. It is hard to say exactly what the difference is. Fewer micro-stutters, perhaps. “I mean, I knew you were alive — Varric told me — but then it’s one thing to know that, and another to see for yourself. And since you’re gathering elfroot, I guess the nightmare is over, because you wouldn’t want to gather elfroot if it looks like it’s going to grow teeth and eat you, right?”

“I’m fine, kiddo. And you did well!”

Evie grins before her expression grows troubled. “I _think_ we did a good thing. Although I guess we killed a whole lot of people, which isn’t particularly good, but then the people we killed would have killed all sorts of other people if we hadn’t, so it’s sort of like stopping a bigger bad with a smaller bad.” She rubs her forehead absently. “I’m babbling again, aren’t I? I do that. Babble. I thought it had gotten better, except that it’s getting worse again. Oh, and I’m sorry, Solas, I didn’t even greet you. That was terribly rude of me. You are well, yes? You’ve had a lot of work, what with Blackwall, and Scout Harding, and everyone else, and I didn’t even ask how you are.”

“There is no harm done, Herald. The Hinterlands are much safer for the refugees now. It was a worthy cause, and I was glad to help.”

Evie smiles, clearly encouraged by this endorsement, and then turns to Margo “Could...” she fidgets. “I have a question. That I want to ask you. Can we have tea later?”

Margo nods with a smile, but her brows knit in puzzlement. “Is that the question? Whether we can have tea?”

Evie gets flustered. “No! I mean, yes, that is a question, but not _the_ question. Not that there is _the_ question, more like _a_ question. Agh, I’m making a mess of it again!”

Margo gives Evie’s forearm a friendly squeeze. Even with the babbling, the kid does seem better, somehow. More _there_.“Anytime you’re free. You can help me with the potions if you’d like.”

Evie beams. “Really? I would love to!”

“I’ll put you to work,” Margo warns.

“Even better! I like work. It helps me think, I think. Except when I spill things. Then that’s just terribly embarrassing.” A shadow passes over Evie’s otherwise quite radiant expression. “But I’ll be careful and won’t be a nuisance at all.”

Solas hands Margo her pack, offers them both a formal little bow, and glides off, up the road and towards the others. Margo forces her gaze away from his retreating back and firmly shoves the twinge of sorrow beneath the long-suffering rug. She’s going to start tripping over that thing if she isn’t careful. What is wrong with her? She should have asked when she had the chance, instead of this idiotic hand-wringing. It isn’t like her to run away from the prospect of bad news. Just... rip off the band-aid. She's fine with just friends. Nothing wrong with just friends. Would they even be on each other's map if not for that ill-fated ritual at the beginning of this entire mess?

Since Ivan and Lily she had studiously kept things casual. Pleasant, fun, lighthearted — and without the risks of tangling up her roots. At most, a politely functional symbiosis at arm's length. It had suited her perfectly well. What the hell does she even _want_ with the elf? Or was Cosmic Shitgibbon right? Maybe all it boils down to is a roll in the hay, and the occasional interesting conversation. Of course, it's nice when the two coincide — less social management when it's an all-in-one kind of deal, but they need not to, if it's not in the cards. Maybe it's just hormones. And if so, surely, she could take care of the problem without too much difficulty — aside from the obvious solution, Maile's inherited reputation doesn't exactly telegraph "hard to get." As to the conversations...

“Have you discovered what was wrong with the ravens?” she asks instead, mostly to distract herself from her thoughts.

Evie looks thoughtful. “Well, we did find them. They were with that big flock up over the mountain — you can spot ours, because they’re the ones with the red feathers. I mean, the bigger red feathers. And it _is_ flock, right? Or is it gaggle? I can never remember this. Swarm?”

Margo chuckles grimly. “If we are talking about crows, then it is actually ‘murder.’ A murder of crows. And then if it’s ravens, then it’s ‘unkindness.’”

Evie’s eyes widen, and then she wrinkles her freckled nose in distaste. “Now, that’s just confusing. It makes it sound like someone is killing them. Or that they’re mean to each other. But then, that’s not the case at all. They were all just… flying together in circles. Very cooperatively too. Not unkindly at all.”

“Did Amund have any idea why? Or Vivienne?”

Evie shrugs. “They did, but I don’t think they were happy with each other’s explanations. They argued a lot.” She lowers her voice. “Madame Vivienne called Amund a superstitious savage. And Amund called her a _sunften slangô_. I don’t know what it means, but it sounds terribly unflattering, doesn’t it?”

Margo represses a chortle. It does sound unflattering. She’ll have to ask Amund when she gets a chance. Purely out of linguistic interest, of course. To expand her Avvar lexicon.

“So what do they think happened?”

Evie’s face is drawn in concentration as she recalls the two competing explanations. “Well, as far as I understood, Amund thinks that there is this Lady of the Skies, and she is the one who directs bird flight, and so she redirected the ravens to warn Amund about the templars. And Lady Vivienne thinks that someone had planted this odd skull on top of the mountain, and the skull drew the ravens because... I’m not sure. She says there was magic that functioned like a beacon or something like it, and which confused the ravens’ sense of direction?” She takes a breath, and continues. “Except then Amund said that the reason that someone had planted the skull in the first place was because such was the will of the Lady of the Skies — even if they thought they were doing it for other reasons. But this is where I got confused, because the Chantry teaches us that everything is the will of the Maker, and if so, doesn’t it mean that the Lady of the Skies is also confused about why she is doing what she’s doing? Even though I personally don't think the Maker is directing the ravens —or anything else for that matter.” Evie’s eyes widen in alarm, and she switches to a conspiratorial whisper. “And then, it made me think. What if there is someone _behind_ the Maker, and everything is actually _their_ will, and the Maker thinks He knows why He’s doing things, but actually He’s just as duped as everyone else. And then, someone is behind that other one, and so on… Oh, don’t tell Mother Giselle I said that. I don’t think she’d like it.”

Margo stares at Evie for a few seconds. Bann Trevelyan should have his ass kicked all the way to the Anderfels — whatever these are, they don't sound pleasant — and back for not helping the kid develop her intellectual potential, among other things. As far as Margo is concerned, nothing signals “smart cookie” quite like a spontaneous capacity for heresy.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell. So, did they dismantle the skull?”

Evie nods. “Dorian says he will help research its exact properties once we bring it back to Haven. It is apparently Nevarran. The skull, not Haven. Because that would be politically problematic, if Nevarra suddenly claimed Haven.”

“Have you eaten?” Margo asks suddenly, as her stomach emits a particularly plaintive rumble. “I need to set the elfroot out to dry, and then we can have lunch or tea if you’d like.”

“I have, but you must be hungry. Do you want me to get you a plate? And then I can help you with the elfroot, and we can have tea, and you can eat, and we can talk.” Evie wrinkles her nose again. “Oh no. That’s a lot of ‘ands’ in one sentence.”

Margo smiles. “Thanks, kiddo, but I can get it myself. You _are_ the Herald of Andraste, after all.”

“It’s all right,” Evie smiles, and then looks towards the others. Perhaps Margo is imagining it, but there is something a little wistful to Evie’s expression, and it seems to her that the young woman’s eyes linger on someone. Margo follows Evie’s gaze. Varric and Bull are still at their card game, along with Asher. Blackwall and Cassandra are both seated next to the fire, eating the noonday grub. Dorian and Vivienne are crouched over a football-sized object on the ground, seemingly engrossed in conversation. Solas stands nearby, leaning on his staff and seemingly listening in. Harding and Amund are to the side, feeding two ravens with what appears to be strips of raw meat.

“I don’t mind getting it. I’ll be right back.” And before Margo has a chance to protest, the kid takes off.

By the time Margo commandeers a stretch of canvas from a disassembled templar tent and sets the herbs out to dry, Evie is back with a bowl of stew and two cups of tea. They settle on the edge of the fabric, the elfroot’s medicinal scent wafting around them in bitter effluvia, and Margo digs into her food with an effusive but muffled thank you, under Evie’s rather pleased scrutiny.

“So. What did you want to talk about?” Margo asks between two bites.

Evie’s face colors a bit, and she huddles around her cup of steaming liquid, idly poking at a clump of dry dirt with the toe of her leather boot. “It’s a terribly silly question, you know. You’re going to think less of me, I think. But I think you’ll think _less_ less of me than if I asked one of the others.” She scrunches up her face into a pained expression. “Ugh, I hate words. Language. Doing things with language. It doesn’t seem to be hard for anyone else, somehow.”

That’s it, Margo realizes. This is what’s different. Evie’s self-awareness about her speech patterns, her ability to articulate her difficulties without being completely engulfed by the emotions associated with them. “Don’t worry about that one bit,” Margo reassures. “No such thing as silly questions.”

Evie gathers air into her lungs and exhales. “All right. Here it goes. How do you know when you’re in love?”

Margo chokes on her soup.

Evie’s eyes grow huge with alarm. “Oh no! I made you choke. I should have warned you that I was going to ask you something embarrassing. Except I guess I thought I did. But it doesn’t work like that, does it?”

“I’m fine, kiddo,” Margo squeaks, trying to dislodge the soup from her lungs, tears in her eyes. She wipes them with her sleeve and sets the bowl of stew away from herself. “All right. How do you know you’re in love. Good question.” What the hell is she to do with this? That birds and bees conversation is just over the horizon, isn’t it? “Is something making you think you’re in love?” Right. When in doubt, deflect.

Evie sighs, picks a stick off the ground, and starts doodling in the dirt. “I… don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever been in love. Or if I was, I don’t think I knew I was. So that’s why I want to find out.”

Ok. She can do this. The poor kid probably never did have anyone to help her parse through any of the milestones, let alone the complicated emotional stuff.

“I suppose it depends on how you want to define love. There are different manifestations of it, and different experiences.” At the young woman’s troubled look, Margo decides that they’re not yet at the stage where Evie might appreciate the idea that romantic love is in fact a culturally and historically bound phenomenon. As if _that_ nugget of wisdom ever helped anyone. “I guess one thing that all types of love have in common is that the other person’s presence augments something in yourself,” Margo tries. That seems too convoluted, and not quite right anyway. “I mean, you feel good around them?” She’s not sure this is quite right either.

Evie’s expression is thoughtful. “That’s what I thought. But then that’s what’s so confusing. I mean, that’s vague, isn’t it? What if there are multiple someones who do that?”

Margo pinches the bridge of her nose. Has the kid developed multiple crushes? “All right, sweetheart. I’m not going to twist your arm and ask you who it is, but it might help me understand better if I have a general idea…”

Evie blushes, but her expression remains determined. “I know. Promise you won’t tell.”

Margo nods solemnly. That particular secret she can keep to herself.

“It’s… So we’ve been traveling together a lot, right. And I really didn’t know her all that well before, but then with the mages, and the Templars, and Crossroads. And the goats… I mean, never mind the goats.” Evie sighs, and erases her doodle with the sole of her boot. “I just feel so _clearheaded_ whenever she’s nearby. Does that count as feeling good around someone?” The kid sighs again, and hugs her knees to her chest. “But then I sometimes feel a little bit the same way around Commander Cullen. So… it means I am a bad, fickle person, doesn’t it? Aunt Lucille always said that ‘inconstancy’ was a blight set upon women for their moral failings.” Evie frowns, contemplating. “Although, come to think of it, she might have said ‘incontinence.’”

Margo is glad she has no more soup to choke on. “You’re talking about Cassandra, aren’t you?” she manages.

Evie nods into her knees. “You won’t tell her, will you? I think I would die of embarrassment.”

_Void in a sack, Margo_ thinks. And here she had thought _her_ life was complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by leeches, who make serviceable experimental organisms.
> 
> Next up: Dorian, Solas, and Amund discuss metaphysics; Josephine deals with unreasonable expectations; and Leliana moves her chess pieces around the board.


End file.
